


The Trial of the Linens

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Series: Linens-verse [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Age Difference, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, I shook a witcher and intergenerational trauma fell out, M/M, Pederasty, Power Imbalance, Size Difference, Witcher Child-Rearing, Witcher Sexual Mores, whoops I wrote myself into OTPing Eskel/Geralt in the course of this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-18 11:16:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20638268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: A young witcher's sexual education, or:Five times Geralt faced the Trial of the Linens and one time he administered it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Clarifying notes on the major warnings:
> 
> Underage - there is explicit sex in every chapter and absolutely none of it is between two people who are unequivocally adults by their standards or modern age standards. (The degree to which Witchers have no concept of an age of consent for their trainees is a large part of the inspiration for this story.) This is a lot of boys ages 14ish-17 having sex with adults and occasionally with each other, and everyone involved regarding that as normal and fine. (Not Vesemir though! Vesemir does not fuck any of our witchers. I'm not a _monster_.)
> 
> Rape/Non-Con & Violence - **Chapter 2** features all of this going awry and Geralt suffering a violent sexual assault by an adult. I'll give guideposts if you want to skip that specific scene.
> 
> This story arose mostly from me considering what Geralt's early sexual experiences would have been like in the all-male isolated environs of Kaer Morhen, where he'd lived under the authority of socially alienated witchers since infancy and then I was like "oh my, at least some adult witchers fuck underage witchers at least some of the time" and then I spent way too much time thinking about how that could mesh with Geralt cheerfully enjoying sex and not being super weird about it and seeming to have an unreserved fondness for the School of the Wolf as a whole. And then this happened, at ... considerable length. And now I share it with you!
> 
> Many many thanks to Quarra, Xantissa, and Ylixia for encouraging this from the start, and to Templemarker for valiant and thorough beta work, and, uh, everyone else who nodded and went "yeah, that makes sense" when I explained the premise.

The Trial of the Linens wasn't like the other trials. It wasn't a _real_ trial at all--you didn't speak of it to the instructors, who weren't part of it. The Trial of the Linens was put to boys one at a time, by witchers coming back to Kaer Morhen for the winter, or to rest from the Path now and then through the year. No one ever really failed this trial, although you could do better or worse, and you might face it once or many times. The point was just that everybody faced it, and it mattered that you passed that particular threshold, somewhere in your training.

It could happen any time after you'd passed through the Trial of the Grasses--and enough time afterward to be sure you were fit again and not failing slow instead of fast--as long as you were at least shoulder-high to the witcher who chose you. 

Geralt wasn't sure what would happen if a witcher chose a boy who didn't meet those criteria; he had a vague idea that _the instructors_ would happen to that witcher, in a very serious way. Of course they must _know_ about the Trial of the Linens, after all, even if they weren't involved. They knew practically everything, and certainly everything that happened in the keep.

Geralt's trial came in the spring before he was counted fourteen. All the boys were considered to rise in age on the day of the summer solstice, though Geralt thought, without quite knowing why, that he might have been born in the spring. Eskel was very definite that he'd been born in winter, and therefore was at least a season older than Geralt, and two seasons older than he was counted at Kaer Morhen.

Eskel was shorter, anyway, whatever season he'd been born in; Geralt had hit his growth spurt first, and Eskel only topped _Geralt's_ shoulder by a few inches. 

Afon, the witcher who called Geralt over, actually checked his height--there was no need to ask whether he'd been through the Trial of the Grasses, with his white hair and cat's eyes. Afon set his hand flat on top of Geralt's head, and brought it, level, over to his chin, right where a bright red scar curved under his jaw and down his throat.

"Right," he said gruffly, "you'll do. Come on upstairs, I need some help sharpening my sword."

Geralt nodded, saying nothing. Afon dropped his hand to Geralt's shoulder and steered him toward the stairs. Geralt didn't look back at Eskel, who he'd been walking with a moment before, heading back to the dormitory where they shared blankets nearly every night. This was it--another way Geralt would be changed along the way to becoming a real witcher.

Afon guided him up to one of the rooms--small, but private--where witchers stayed when they returned to Kaer Morhen. They doubled up sometimes, in the winter when several would come back at once and stay for weeks at a time, but now it was late spring, and Afon was the only witcher stopping at Kaer Morhen tonight. The rest of the doors along this corridor were shut.

"Go on and get undressed, no point being shy," Afon said, pulling his own shirt off to reveal a hard body, seamed with scars in every direction. Geralt stared for a second, then hurried to undress, stealing glances as he did.

"No need to ask if this is your first crack at this trial, eh?" Afon said, smiling a little as he walked over to where he seemed to have mostly unpacked his things. 

Geralt nodded, then shook his head, then ducked his head and shoved the last of his clothes off.

Afon snorted, amused but not unkind as he looked Geralt up and down; Geralt knew what his body looked like and wasn't unused to it being seen, but never by anyone with that light in their eyes. It made him want to shiver, but he kept himself steady. "Yeah, that's a fine answer, little wolf. You tried anything with the other boys? Hands, fingers?"

Geralt felt his face heat, thinking of the last several months sharing blankets with Eskel. They'd never been shy with each other, had figured out plain friction a long time ago, but lately they'd found all kinds of more elaborate things they could do to, or with, each other. No one seemed to mind, except if they made too much noise and bothered the other boys in their dormitory.

They'd gotten good at being quiet.

"A little," Geralt said. "Not--" he swallowed, and put his chin up. He knew why he was here. He knew what the Trial of the Linens was, and like Afon had said, there was no point in being shy about it. "We haven't fucked, but we've tried fingers."

Afon laughed a little, right out loud, his expression bright and pleased. "Have you? Precocious puppies, I see. Have you tried other things than each other? Ale, or anything stronger?"

Geralt shrugged, nodded. "A few times. Just ale, not--"

Afon pulled out a bottle of something not quite clear. "You know what this is?"

Geralt's eyes widened. "Is it--is that--White Gull?"

A few of the oldest boys, past all their trials but the last, claimed to have tasted White Gull, and told wild stories about its effects. Their instructors, more succinctly, said, "If you aren't a full witcher, do not drink it, because _it will kill you._"

"It is," Afon said. "I'm not going to invite you to drink any, little pup, no need to look like that. Just--come here."

Geralt walked slowly closer, watching Afon's hands and the bottle as he would a cliff-edge. Afon turned it over, then upright again as Geralt reached him. He uncorked the bottle, held between them, and the fumes rushing up had a strange sharp-sweetness that made Geralt's eyes and mouth water.

"Here," Afon said, holding out not the bottle but the cork. "Touch your tongue to that, no more."

Geralt did, holding his tongue against the cork when Afon didn't immediately draw it away. Even the residue of White Gull on the cork burned against his tongue, but he kept breathing in that strange fascinating smell and held Afon's eyes until his own started to water.

Afon broke into a grin and pulled the cork away then. "There. That ought to help you relax. Go get on the bed, I'll find something to do the rest of the job with."

Geralt went, and felt like he was swimming through the air, feeling it touch him all over. Except the soles of his feet, which were touching stone, feeling all the little shapes of it and--

"Almost made it," Afon said, suddenly right behind him, his big hand looking dark where it wrapped around Geralt's hip. "Look, look at those nice sheets, little wolf. Even whiter than you are, hey?"

Geralt let himself be pushed down and--the sheets _were_ whiter than he was. They were--they were _actual linen_, not just called that because they belonged to the category of things you put on beds, unlike the rough pieced-together bedding the boys slept on down in the dormitory.

He made a sound that he was dimly aware might be a giggle. "The Trial of the _Linens_. Because it's really _linen_."

Afon laughed softly above him, and Afon's hands, big and warm and hard, callused but gentle too, stroked down Geralt's back all the way to his ass, and then back up, unhurried. Geralt hummed at the pleasure of it, wriggling a little just for the feeling of his skin sliding against Afon's hands. 

His own hands brushed over the linen under him, and he rested his cheek against it. His gaze drifted to the fire in the fireplace across the room, and the flames seemed edged with rainbow colors, just on the verge of making shapes he could recognize.

Afon said something, again in that friendly laughing tone, and Geralt mumbled something that might have been an answer. Afon's hands moved down, down, to the backs of his thighs, and spread them open, and somehow the touch felt edged with rainbows, too, better than anything he'd ever felt. He let Afon press his legs open and wriggled some more--his dick was getting stiff against the linen, and rubbing it felt amazing. 

And then Afon touched his hole with slick fingers and Geralt gasped, pushing up into the touch. That felt--better than best, amazing, impossible--and the sensations only kept building, more and more and _more_.

It was all a bright-edged blur after that--pleasure and a little pain, heat and fire edged with rainbows and the white white linen and Afon's hands and Afon pushing inside him. Geralt laughed, or cried, or maybe neither of those showed on the outside and he was only lying still, staring into the flames, twitching his fingers against the linen, too overwhelmed to move or make a sound. He felt as if he soared into the heavens at the same time. 

He definitely came. _Twice_.

The fucking part ended, but Geralt was still dazed, even when Afon finally moved between him and the fire to look into his eyes. 

Afon was rainbow-edged too. Afon had given him all of this, all this pleasure and all this sensation he could never have imagined. Geralt beamed at him, and Afon patted his cheek and said, "Yeah, you're sleeping here tonight, pup."

Geralt did, eventually. For a long while he just lay there, his body feeling heavy and good, even better than after a training session where he'd bested every other boy in his cohort. The bright colored edges of everything faded slowly, while he watched through his eyelashes as Afon mended gear and sorted supplies, even mixed a few potions kneeling right there by the fire. Geralt was fascinated as much by the way Afon grumbled over a nearly empty pouch of celandine as by the alchemy that made disparate ingredients combine into the glimmering liquid of a new potion.

Eventually the fire died down and the room got dim, and Afon came and lay beside him in the bed. Geralt curled closer to him, seeking his warmth and his already-familiar scent. He finally closed his eyes, and slept, and if he had any dreams he couldn't tell them from the reality of the evening.

* * *

Geralt woke when the first faint light of false dawn was starting to lighten the sky. This room didn't face east, but the narrow window showed the shade of dim greyness that Geralt had learned well in his years at Kaer Morhen. The fire was almost all ash now, only a few faint hints of red suggesting that some coals still lingered to be roused back into flame.

Geralt felt perfectly sober now, and warm and comfortable on this fine bed, tucked between a big solid body and the wall. he grinned at the man whose blankets he'd shared, though Afon's eyes were still closed. 

"Mm," Afon murmured, slinging a heavy arm over Geralt. "One more time before you go, pup? See what it's like with both feet on the ground?" 

He was only a little sore from last night; Afon had been gentle with him and it had felt good much more than it hurt. _Twice_. Geralt _was_ curious about what it was like when he was properly aware of everything, too. Would it feel even better? Or just more?

And it was Afon, who was still edged with rainbows in Geralt's mind, even if he was only a gray-on-gray shape in the dark to Geralt's eyes. "Okay."

"Roll over, face the wall," Afon rumbled, giving him a little push. Afon moved the opposite way, retrieving a small pot from the floor beside the bed. 

Geralt was still lying there watching when Afon turned back with the pot in hand, an eyebrow raised. Geralt felt himself flush hot and turned quickly, propping his forearms against the wall.

"There, that's not so hard," Afon murmured, pushing a knee between Geralt's thighs, pressing Geralt's top leg forward to rest against the wall. Geralt braced his toes and knee against the stone as well, the cold in front of him a sharp contrast to the heat of Afon's body pressing close behind him--Afon's cock, slick and wide, pressing against his hole and making the fading soreness there suddenly sharp.

It didn't feel like the night before--but it wouldn't, of course. The night before he'd been flying on White Gull; this was the real thing. Now he would know what it was really like, facing the Trial of the Linens with nothing to help him through it.

And there was, after all, still linen under his cheek, and it was still Afon pressing against him, and only testing, not shoving inside harshly, not hurting him. Geralt rubbed his cheek against the softness of the sheets and took a steadying breath, then made himself relax and open up the way he'd learned through trial and error with Eskel. 

Afon let out a low pleased groan at that, pushing forward into Geralt. The sound and the knowledge of how good it must feel for Afon sent a thrill up Geralt's spine that still felt edged in rainbows, tangling up with the sharp burn of being stretched by the head of Afon's cock. Geralt remembered that it had felt sort of like this last night--not the hurt but the stretching, being opened up and filled. He panted, caught between memory and reality as he chased the pleasure of it, the way even the hurt felt good. 

It was like a real trial, like training, being pushed to a new limit he hadn't even known was there and knowing he would come through it stronger. 

And then there was a shock of actual pleasure, so sweet and intense that he gasped, his whole body jerking against the wall. 

Afon laughed low in his ear and curled an arm around Geralt's chest, spreading his hand over the pounding of Geralt's heart so that his thumb brushed Geralt's nipple. "That's the spot, huh? You liked everything so much last night I could hardly tell when I hit it."

Afon moved then, thrusting shallowly in and out--he was only barely inside--but his cock was pressing against that spot that felt good. Just being touched there had never felt _this_ good, this dizzy wild rush of being held by a big body, of Afon's knowing laughter in his ear, being stretched open and still feeling little shivers of pain but also--also so _good_.

Geralt was hard, rising toward coming, but before he got there, Afon groaned again and murmured, "Sorry, pup, I just need--"

Geralt nodded frantically even as Afon pushed in deeper, a slick slide that took Geralt's breath away, stretching him further, filling him deeper. There was pain again, but still that good pain that he knew would get him somewhere, sharp and clean and exhilarating. Afon moved in him, slow at first as he started to get into a rhythm, and then faster, harder, so that Geralt really did have to brace himself against the wall. 

But the more Afon moved, the more Geralt felt, and the more the previous night came flooding back, the pleasure and the dizzy impossible delight of it all. Afon's hand slid down to Geralt's belly, stopping short of his cock to press his palm and spread fingers against his flesh right over the place where Afon's cock was pounding in faster and faster, as if he could feel himself right through Geralt. 

It only made Afon feel bigger inside him, made him feel small in a way he hadn't in years, not since he survived the Trial of the Grasses. Here he was caught between a stone wall and the witcher fucking him, a man who spent most of the year killing monsters, who was so big that Geralt only came up to his chin. Geralt felt almost helpless, almost like a child, and for a teetering second he didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or cry, hide his face or shout from the rooftops.

Afon's hand moved downward again, curling around Geralt's hard cock, which was nearly engulfed by his big, rough hand. Geralt gasped, whined, tried to push into it and push back against Afon's cock all at the same time. The sensations overwhelmed him almost as thoroughly as the White Gull had, and he lost all track of what hurt and what felt good and which way was up. 

He came, a single flash in the storm of sensation that went on and on afterward, somehow just as intense, or even more so. His body was wracked with pleasure and pain and the desperate need for something he couldn't have named even if he could speak.

Then Afon's arm tightened around him, pulling him tight to Afon's chest, away from the bracing solidity of the wall, and he rolled Geralt half under him to pound into him a last few times. The softness of the linen and the wool mattress under him was welcome after the wall, even if he could hardly breathe. Afon groaned in his ear and came, cock jerking inside Geralt while Afon's hand moved down to Geralt's belly again to press in hard. 

Geralt bit his lip and didn't groan at the cramping pain of that doubled pressure. Then it let up, and Geralt breathed out and let himself melt into the bed. Afon stayed on top of him for a moment, a welcome sweaty-hot weight. Geralt was just starting to be aware of the scrapes on his elbows and knee and toes when Afon pulled away, leaving him feeling startlingly cold. 

He wasn't gone for long, though, settling beside Geralt on the mattress, where Geralt was still lying facedown. He planted a hand in the middle of Geralt's back and said, "Almost forgot to blood you, can't have that." 

Geralt hadn't made sense of the words before he felt a sharp, deep sting on the back of his shoulder, and then it clicked. 

It was the mark a witcher left on a boy, since no other mark from the Trial of the Linens would last more than a day or two, and many times nothing else in the trial drew blood. Treated with Seal salve, it would make a scar, a neat vertical tally mark; every witcher who brought him to bed after this would leave his own mark, so that Geralt would always have this reminder of what he had given to the witchers who went before him, and what they had taught him.

"There you are," Afon said. "Now, ever had Seal on a wound before?"

Geralt shook his head. Outside of the tally marks, Seal was only for wounds that might kill; it was as hard on the body as any healing potion and always left visible scars, the price for the way it could close even serious wounds almost instantly. Geralt hadn't ever chanced to be hurt that badly--and Seal might have killed him if he had, since he was too young to have built up much of a tolerance for the toxicity of witchers' potions.

"Well," Afon said. "Best to start small, eh? Get a few more marks like this and you'll be just about ready to use it for real when you need it." With that said, Afon smeared something over the cut that made Geralt twitch and gasp at the tingling burn of it. He felt a shivery echo through his whole body of the Trial of the Grasses, and the extra trials he'd had since, but the feeling passed as it always did--within a few minutes this time. 

When it was gone, it took with it the last shreds of Geralt's satisfied sleepiness. He could feel everywhere he was sore, then, which was mostly everywhere. Still, he pushed himself up to sit, since Afon hadn't lain back down. Dawn was nearly here; when he sat up there was a directionless gray light filling the room, and he could see the sky starting to pale through the window.

"Right," Afon said, looking him over--oddly like he had the night before when he chose Geralt, when he was a stranger and Geralt had never touched him. "All in one piece, and not yet late for morning chores and breakfast. Best you head back to the dormitory now. I'm riding out this morning, I've got to pack."

Geralt nodded, mustering up a smile. He would be as nonchalant as Afon was; he understood how this worked. 

"Thanks, Afon." He looked around for his clothes and spotted the pile he'd left them in the night before. He scooped them up and walked out without looking back, only realizing when he stepped out into the corridor that he probably could have lingered another minute to put them on. 

As it was, he was standing naked in an open hallway with a bruise rising on his belly and what was probably a mixture of come and oil sliding down the inside of his thigh. He hurriedly yanked his shirt and pants on, leaving his shoes tucked under his arm, and took off for the dormitory at a run, silent on bare feet.

He only made it to the top of the stairs before he had to stop short, flinging one arm out to balance himself as Eskel popped to his feet from where he'd been curled up on the third stair down.

Geralt hurried down to him. "What is it? Something wrong?"

Eskel's brow furrowed as he looked Geralt over. "I'm not the one who stood a trial last night. I woke up an hour ago and saw you still weren't back, so I thought I'd just..."

Eskel gestured vaguely.

Geralt grinned, slinging his arm around Eskel's shoulders and turning him down the stairs. "It was _amazing_. Last night was--uh, maybe we can talk about that outside," Geralt said, glancing around and recalling the way the instructors seemed to just _know_ everything that they ever said, anywhere in the keep.

"Outside?" Eskel said dubiously, but he slung his arm around Geralt in turn and didn't argue when Geralt headed for the nearest way out when they reached the bottom of the stairs. 

"Yeah, we can--" Geralt searched for an excuse, and quickly found one that wasn't really an excuse at all. Even better. "Afon's out of celandine and he's riding out this morning. I thought I'd pick some for him so he isn't caught short."

Eskel looked even more dubious, but he followed Geralt through the door and across the inner courtyard to the postern gate that let out onto a relatively easy stretch of the path away from the keep. Geralt paused to stretch, feeling again all the aches in his body, and couldn't help grinning as he looked up at the sky, still dark blue overhead. His stomach grumbled, and his grin faltered a little as he considered the fact that gathering celandine for Afon was likely to mean missing breakfast.

Eskel, beside him, heaved a sigh and then passed him a little bundle, wrapped in cloth, and warm like he'd been carrying it in his shirt. Geralt shot him a grateful look and unwrapped the pilfered roll. It was only a little stale, and Eskel had even managed to get hold of some meat to stuff into the middle of it. 

Geralt started eating, looking around as he did. He jerked his chin downhill, chewing, and made a questioning noise with his mouth full, not bothering to try for words. He didn't need that with Eskel.

"Yeah, there's a lot more downhill to try than up," Eskel agreed, and they started down the path while Eskel pulled out his own breakfast--every bit as good as Geralt's, Geralt saw, so he didn't need to insist on trading. They ate and walked in peace, each watching his side of the path for any sign of celandine big enough to strip a few leaves from without killing the plant so early in the season.

Geralt felt the little glances Eskel kept shooting his way, and he chewed and swallowed and struggled to think of what he was going to say, exactly.

He still wasn't sure by the time Eskel stuffed the last of his roll into his mouth and turned aside to pluck a few leaves of celandine. Geralt swallowed his last bite and crouched beside him, looking for another clump nearby.

"So it was good," Eskel said, low. "You liked it that much? So much that you couldn't say inside?"

"Well that was more the White Gull," Geralt said, grabbing a few leaves but watching Eskel's face.

Eskel's eyes went wide and swept quickly up and down over him.

"Not undead," Geralt said, grinning again. "It was just a taste--" Eskel's shocked expression started to turn annoyed, and Geralt shook his head. "Literally just a taste! Just the bottom of the cork, that's all, and the fumes. I didn't swallow anything at all, Eskel, I swear. I know better than that."

Eskel's scowl softened, and he grabbed the back of Geralt's neck, digging his fingernails in and giving him a little shake, but that meant he wasn't mad, not really. If he was mad he would walk away and refuse to touch Geralt at all. 

"It was just, you know, to help me relax, I guess?" Geralt said when Eskel let him go, struggling to reach back through the magic-tinted blur of the evening to the things Afon had said to him just before. "And even that much had me flying, so I'm not gonna doubt the instructors about what actually drinking it would do."

Eskel nodded, studying his face, and then looked around again; they'd taken all the leaves they could from the celandine within reach. Geralt stood, Eskel standing in sync with him, and they started down the path again.

"And he, I mean. You know. He fucked me. Just that, not anything--" Geralt waved a hand. Older boys' stories tended to embellish a lot on the obvious acts, claiming that all kinds of positions and weird additional activities might be required, if a witcher's taste ran that way. "He didn't even want me to suck it first or anything, but it felt--" Geralt waved his hands, and Eskel ducked under one with a wry look and nodded toward another clump of celandine.

Geralt crouched beside it while Eskel moved a little further off the path, looking for more. It was easier to say it to the plant as he chose which leaves to take, than to Eskel looking at him or walking beside him.

"It felt amazing. Better than--I didn't know it would feel _better_ than fingers, I thought it would just hurt more. But it was--" Geralt waved his handful of leaves around, still lost for words. "Amazing. Like magic, but just _good_."

He looked over at Eskel, who was a little flushed but staring steadily at the celandine in front of him. Was Eskel wondering what his own Trial of the Linens would be like, when his turn came?

"If he comes back for the winter," Geralt blurted. "Maybe you--"

Eskel looked up sharply, but waited a moment before he said, "Yeah? Sounds like you'd want him all to yourself."

Geralt shrugged stiffly and stood, heading back to the path with Eskel on his heels for a couple of strides before he reached his usual shoulder-to-shoulder spot. "I mean, I--I wouldn't say _no_," Geralt muttered. "If he wanted--but I know it's not--"

"Viduka's balls, do you _really_ want him all to yourself?"

He'd hardly thought of the concept before Eskel said it, hadn't even really thought of the possibility of having him again, let alone over and over, but--there was something hot in his belly and tight in his chest at the thought. He _liked_ Afon, and Afon had been so kind to him, like maybe he liked Geralt too. He'd only said _you'll do_, but that was high praise whenever it came from the instructors; it might mean as much from Afon. 

Still. Eskel _should_ get to know what it was like, and Geralt had never been selfish with anything he had, when it came to sharing with Eskel. 

He shook his head hard. "You should. And I know it's not--witchers don't--"

He did know that. He'd never heard of a boy going to one witcher's bed only, or a witcher always asking for the same boy every time he came, but... No one really said so, but Geralt knew that he was different from the other boys, just a little bit. Special. He'd faced extra trials. Maybe he could be special to Afon, too. 

It wouldn't be like regular people were, but still, he could be Afon's favorite, maybe, and Afon... Afon was already his, even if Geralt didn't have anything to compare him with. What else did he need to experience?

He caught the sound of hoofbeats, still quieter than his own heartbeat but in a distinct rhythm. Geralt looked around hurriedly and dove at another celandine, trying not to rush while also wasting no time. Eskel followed suit, again going a little further off the path to find another plant. Geralt listened to the hoofbeats approaching--the horse was walking, and without a rider, Geralt thought. Afon would be walking, leading the horse down the difficult path, guiding her through the almost-invisible routes that would allow a horse to traverse it safely.

Geralt reached behind him, without looking away from the path, and Eskel dropped celandine leaves into his palm. Geralt stepped up just to the verge and watched up the path, waiting and trying to suppress a smile.

Afon was intent on guiding the horse; he didn't look up and notice Geralt until he was only a couple of yards away, and then he stopped short and stared--not as if he'd never seen Geralt before, exactly, but definitely as if he couldn't imagine what Geralt was doing here.

Geralt let himself smile a little then and took a step forward, holding out the celandine. "I picked some for you, I noticed--"

Afon's gaze went to the celandine and his expression tightened into an unmistakable frown, hard and cold and distant, not _Afon_ anymore but _a Witcher_. Geralt faltered, aware that he'd misstepped but seeing no way to retreat now, and then Afon took a short step forward and flung out a hand, slapping Geralt's hand hard enough to make it go half-numb. The celandine leaves scattered from his suddenly strengthless fingers as pain, as stunning from the unexpectedness as the intensity, shot up his arm.

"What in all hells are you thinking, kid?" Afon snapped, and _kid_ made Geralt feel stupid and small in a way _pup_ hadn't, last night. "I fuck you a couple of times and let you enjoy it, so you start picking me flowers? Melly's tits, get back into the keep before I turn around and tell them what kind of little bitch their white wolf pup is."

There wasn't really room to get by Afon and his horse on the path, but Geralt flung himself forward and up, scrabbling at sheer rock and thinking only of _escape_, and managed it somehow without touching Afon or letting him get in another slap or another word. He didn't really touch the path again until he fell onto it on his hands and knees. 

He shut his eyes when he heard soft footfalls, deliberately loud enough to let him know Eskel was coming up on his blind side. He didn't bother to stand before Eskel crouched beside him.

Eskel had heard that, had seen all of it. And the furious denials rising too late in Geralt's throat--not _flowers_, just _celandine_, Afon needed it and Geralt was just being _helpful_ and anyway he'd only done it because he wanted an excuse to talk to Eskel outside--Eskel already knew all of that, so Geralt didn't have to say it. He let out one sound, trying to choke it back when he realized how much it sounded like a sob, and shook his head hard at no one. 

He wasn't stupid, he wasn't a _little bitch_, and he would get fucked by every single other witcher in the School of the Wolf before he ever let Afon touch him again. 

Eskel leaned down, shoving a shoulder into Geralt's armpit, and Geralt let himself be pulled up, realizing as he did that Eskel had a big handful of celandine, some of it a little crushed.

"Shouldn't go to waste," was all Eskel said. "If we take it to the potions lab Master Alwyn will let us have something to clean up your hands. Come on."

Geralt gritted his teeth, gave a short nod, and walked, leaving his arm slung around Eskel's shoulders. He breathed a little easier when Eskel's arm curled around him in return. 

"If he asks for me," Eskel said thoughtfully, "I'm going to bite him. Hard. Show him what kind of teeth a wolf pup has."

Geralt was startled into a laugh, too loud and a little painful, but it was enough to let him go back into the keep with a smile on his face that wasn't entirely a lie.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sexual assault & violence warning:** This chapter is where it's happening, please brace yourself accordingly! It's bad! If you want to skip the actual badness, stop at _the heavy hand landing on his shoulder startled him_ and skip forward to _Quen._ (Or, uh, at any point when you need to pull the ripcord--just search _Quen_ and jump down there.)
> 
> Please enjoy all the thought I put into Kaer Morhen cooking logistics and also oops I gave Vesemir a special friend, not sorry.

By the time winter began closing in on Kaer Morhen, the arrival of snow and an unknown number of witchers both heralded by the shortening days and cloud-filled skies, Geralt had three neat scars running parallel on the back of his shoulder. At some point the spiteful vow to go to bed with every witcher in the School of the Wolf had become an ambition, though not one he had much time or opportunity to pursue. Well, winter would change that.

The day the first snow flew, Geralt's cohort were taken aside by the Master Vesemir right after breakfast, though they didn't normally have their sword instruction until the afternoon. It was obvious that this wasn't a normal kind of instruction.

When they were all gathered around Vesemir in the indoor sword-training room, he looked them over thoughtfully and sighed. "We expect witchers will be coming home to stay the winter at Kaer Morhen any day. One or two will be here in time to sleep tonight, and it may be that they do not choose to sleep alone."

Geralt felt a little frisson run through the six of them. They'd never heard an instructor refer so directly to the Trial of the Linens before. 

"That will mean something different for you boys this year than it has before," Vesemir said, his eye falling unerringly on Aubry and Gwilim, who hadn't yet stood the Trial of the Linens, before sweeping over the rest of them who had.

Geralt was the only one with _three_ marks to show for it, though. Eskel had two, the others one apiece.

"It also means something different in the winter, when the witcher who needs his bed warmed may stay with us for two or three months at a stretch. We have extra rules, to prevent excessive disruption to training. You are absolutely forbidden from going to a witcher's bed on any night except a Wednesday or Sunday, and you are to come here after breakfast on the morning after you have visited with a witcher and meet with me."

Vesemir paused then, looking each of them in the eye the way he did when he'd just explained a new drill and was checking to see that they all understood it. 

"You will answer honestly all questions I ask you at that time," Vesemir said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master Vesemir," the boys all chorused automatically.

Vesemir raised his eyebrows. "Do you have any questions?"

Geralt had a lot of half-formed questions he couldn't quite put into words, but then he didn't think he could bear just _asking_ them right out loud to Vesemir in front of the others anyway.

Beside him, Eskel said, "You said we're not allowed to _visit a witcher's bed_\--"

"Forgive my circumspection," Vesemir said, in the sharp tone that meant he was pleased; Eskel had asked a good question, one Vesemir had intended to provoke. "Witchers are not allowed to have sexual contact of any kind, in any location, with a boy still in training, at any time other than after supper on Wednesday to before breakfast on Thursday, and after supper on Sunday to before breakfast on Monday. Is that clearer?"

They all nodded, and Vesemir looked at them expectantly, waiting for another question.

Geralt thought carefully over what they'd been told. The first time, Vesemir had said that _they_ weren't allowed to visit a witcher--but this time he'd said that _witchers_ weren't allowed to have sex with them, except at the appointed times.

Vesemir's gaze lighted on Geralt, like he'd spotted the move Geralt was about to make, so Geralt said it, letting the words flow like a sword figure. "What do we do if they _do_? With us, or if we see them with someone else?"

Vesemir gave the nod that meant this was also a correct question. "As soon as you're out of the sight of the witcher in question, whether you're the one he was with or you have seen something you know is out of bounds, you come as swiftly as you can to me, or to any instructor if I cannot readily be found, and report what has happened." Vesemir shrugged slightly, just so, making the steel sword twitch over his shoulder. "After that I will handle the matter, as the particular circumstances require. Sometimes it is merely a matter of reminding the witcher of the limits of Kaer Morhen's hospitality. Sometimes it is not."

"That's it?" Gwilim said. "We don't do anything until we're out of their sight?"

Geralt looked over at Eskel, to see him returning the same knowing look. Gwilim had never felt the strength of a real witcher's hands on his hips when that witcher forgot to go easy. 

Vesemir's lips tightened. This clearly was _not_ a question he was pleased to answer. "Any witcher who has so forgotten himself as to violate the rules must be presumed to be lost to reason. None of you stand the slightest chance of either dissuading such a man with words, or deterring him with force. Exercise all due caution in the presence of such a witcher, and do whatever you can to keep yourself in such a condition that you will be able to _walk away afterward and tell me what happened._"

Gwilim and Aubry had both gone deathly pale, and nodded hastily. Geralt felt a little bad for them; he didn't think his own Trial of the Linens would have been so enjoyable if the thought of how much a witcher could hurt him if he chose to--or even if he just wasn't careful _not_ to--had been quite so prominent in his mind. 

"They probably won't, though," he offered, looking quickly to Vesemir instead of the other boys. "Will they? How often does it happen in a winter?"

Vesemir gave a judicious nod. "Rarely. Many years, not at all. But you are being trained to deal with every kind of monster, so you must be put on your guards for even those that you may go your entire lives without meeting. Do you understand?"

All six of them chorused again, "Yes, Master Vesemir."

* * *

The witchers who happened to return to Kaer Morhen for some brief stay through the year were something like shooting stars; by the time anyone had seen what they were like, they were already gone. That winter, when nine witchers settled in to stay a while, it was different. Geralt's cohort was suddenly included in the gossip of the boys ahead of them in training, right up to the ones who were preparing for the Trial of the Mountains when the snow melted, and all of them traded stories. 

By the middle of December, they all knew that Olli was the easiest to please, because he had an old persistent injury in his leg that pained him more in winter, and was at its worst at the end of the day. He always sought relief, to ease the pain and help him sleep, but he wasn't especially demanding, and let a boy move at his own pace, whether it was his mouth or his ass on Olli's cock. 

And they all knew how to rank all the other witchers in Kaer Morhen who were more difficult to handle than Olli. The undisputed champion for leaving boys limping--even though he had only chosen the bigger boys so far, most of them seventeen years old and starting to gain their adult height and muscle--was Karsten, who had been on the Path about fifteen years. He never quite crossed the line; Geralt had seen Vesemir look grim whenever a boy who had been with Karsten reported to him the next morning, but he never stormed out with steel in his hand. 

Karsten was not lost to reason, Geralt could see. He was perfectly reasonable; he was also cruel. The combination was somehow more frightening than Geralt thought a man actually out of control would be. 

And then, on a Sunday night in January, Karsten's eye fell on Eskel.

Eskel had gotten his fourth tally mark by then; Geralt was up to seven. Eskel had pulled nearly even with Geralt's height, but Geralt still knew he was the stronger of the two of them, even if he'd never provoke Eskel by saying so out loud. 

He didn't think Eskel had noticed Karsten's gaze yet--Eskel was focused on his food, being in one of those weeks when he was always ravenously hungry. Geralt's eyes swept the room, searching for a way to prevent what he could see was about to happen.

There was probably some subtle way to do it--Eskel would surely be able to think of one, or spur Geralt to do so. Geralt usually relied on his partnership with Eskel to pull off the best pranks and schemes. But he couldn't ask Eskel to help him with this.

He would just have to do something stupid, then. Something that wasn't subtle at all. 

It didn't actually take much to be obvious, to a witcher's senses, especially those of an experienced witcher, whose survival depended on noticing every potential threat or resource in his environment--as the instructors always wound up shouting at them, every time they did a practical exercise in the mountains outside the keep. 

Geralt sat up very straight, making himself taller than all the boys around him, who were both shorter than him and bent over their food. And he kept his gaze directly on Karsten, with no attempt to hide it. It would seem challenging, but he thought that would work in his favor with Karsten--there was a reason he'd started with the oldest boys rather than going straight for the youngest he could get away with. He wanted a challenge, someone with a little bit of fight. A boy of fourteen might not normally qualify, but Geralt figured he could make up the difference with sheer boldness.

Sure enough, it only took a couple of minutes before Karsten's gaze fell on him, with a weight that was nearly suffocating. Geralt held his gaze as long as he could, even when Karsten started to smile, slowly baring his teeth. He was gripping the edge of the table, shaking a little with the effort, but he wouldn't look away. 

Not even when Eskel, beside him, hissed his name and jabbed a finger into his leg under the table. _Especially_ not then, because it might transfer Karsten's attention back to Eskel, and that was exactly what Geralt wasn't going to allow tonight.

It was only when Karsten made an unmistakable beckoning gesture that Geralt finally broke and looked away, though he covered it as best he could in the process of getting to his feet and walking over to the table where the witchers were eating. Karsten looked him up and down--gauging his height? or just... looking?--and then nodded. "You're obviously done eating, if you've got time to sit and stare like a little owl. Go wait for me. Fifth door on the left."

Geralt nodded--his stomach was in too many knots for him to eat more anyway--and turned to head upstairs. It meant that he could see Eskel again, and Eskel's eyes were on him, his face the special kind of blank that meant _you've gone and gotten in trouble without me, and I won't rat you out but I won't forget it, either_. 

With one thing and another, he and Eskel possibly had more use for that look than most boys at Kaer Morhen. 

Geralt didn't let his steps falter, not as he crossed the hall and not when he was out of sight, not on the stairs and not in the upper corridor. He counted his way down the doors without pausing, though he didn't really need to. The fifth on the left was the last one, furthest from the ears of any witcher who wasn't likely to be busy for the hour or so after supper. Only one room sharing a wall, not two. 

He reached for the door handle, already deciding he ought to strip before Karsten came up--no need to be shy, and no need to risk having his clothes torn--and wondering where to leave them. He stopped short then.

The door was locked. 

Geralt stared at it in bafflement for several seconds, pressing the latch with his thumb over and over, but it still didn't budge. He knew that the doors locked, of course, but if he wasn't supposed to prepare himself at least as far as taking his clothes off, why--

Geralt closed his eyes and let out a breath, planting his feet and steadying himself to stand and wait as long as he had to. Karsten was making him wait because Karsten _could_ make him wait, because Karsten was cruel like this. He only had to remind himself that he could bear it, and that at least Eskel was still safely downstairs eating his supper. 

The sounds of footsteps on the stairs brought Geralt's eyes open, because it wasn't one man coming up but two. Or... 

He turned his face away as he realized it was a witcher with one of the older boys, heading into another room. Neither of them seemed to pay any attention to him, standing down at the end of the corridor, but then everyone in the dining hall would have heard and seen him being sent up here.

He turned to face Karsten's door, putting his back to everyone else, when another pair came up the stairs, and he didn't look around, even when he recognized Eskel's footsteps coming up in company with Olli's limping tread. They came down the hall most of the way, to the fourth door on the opposite side. Geralt stood absolutely still and tried not to feel Eskel's eyes on him or hear messages in his footsteps, his breathing, the fact of him being so close.

They didn't linger, just headed into Olli's room and shut the door. Geralt could already hear little sounds from some of the other rooms, and he carefully didn't listen for sounds from Olli's room in particular. It meant not listening to much at all, so that the heavy hand landing on his shoulder startled him. 

Karsten rumbled a little laugh at that and pressed Geralt forward with his entire body, letting Geralt feel how hard he was, how big, how useless it would be to even imagine that he could control anything that was about to happen. Karsten unlocked the door and pushed it open without easing his hard grip on Geralt's shoulder, and shoved him inside. 

"On your knees," he growled as Geralt stumbled to a halt in the middle of the room. He pulled the door shut and locked it, barred it, and Geralt realized that he had really not understood how bad this was going to be. He dropped to his knees where he stood, controlling his descent enough not to bruise his knees on the stone floor.

Karsten was unlacing his pants as he walked over, and Geralt thought _at least he's not wearing his swords_ and didn't let himself imagine the alternative. He opened his mouth when Karsten's dick came out--fuck, it was big, and Geralt didn't think that was only because it was so fucking close to his face. Still, he could do this. He could let Karsten do what he was going to do and get his tally mark and go find Eskel waiting for him on the stairs. 

He closed his eyes as Karsten's cock shoved into his mouth and Karsten got a handful of Geralt's hair to hold his head still. He took a quick, deep breath through his nose before Karsten had shoved all the way in, and Karsten's cock hit painfully against the back of his throat and kept pushing. Geralt managed not to gag for what felt like an age but was probably ten seconds, and then he started choking.

Karsten kept pushing. Geralt squeezed his eyes shut tighter, locked his jaw open, clutched at his own pants to keep from making fists, but he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and Karsten _kept pushing in_. He was choking, choking, lights blooming behind his closed eyelids, his trapped head going light, and he was going to pass out and he _must not pass out_, dared not leave himself so defenseless against such an enemy. 

Geralt unlocked his jaw and bared his teeth.

That was all it took for his teeth to scrape against Karsten, and Karsten roared and pulled out so suddenly that it hurt almost as badly as pushing in. Geralt forgot to keep his head down, his eyes closed, and he looked up, still coughing and gagging, struggling for enough breath to tell Karsten he could handle it if Karsten would just go a little slower.

He saw both of Karsten's hands swinging, and it seemed like he had a long time to notice but no time to react, and then both of Karsten's hands slapped over his ears at once, with a brutal force. Geralt's head didn't even rock, but pain exploded through his skull, down inside his ears, and he thought he made a sound but all he knew for sure was that Karsten's cock was shoving into his mouth again, down his throat again.

Geralt couldn't hear anything but a loud ringing in his ears, but he thought that Karsten was saying, maybe yelling, something. He could hardly see for the pain, and he was so dizzy he didn't know how he stayed upright on his knees and he thought he was going to vomit all over Karsten's cock down his throat and choke even worse than he already was. 

He also didn't think he could have closed his teeth again if his life depended on it, not knowing what would happen if he did. He drew his hands up--wished he'd mastered any silent signs or actually any signs at all beyond an Aard that only worked when he was at his most perfectly focused--and clawed at whatever he could reach. 

There wasn't much skin available, but he found it and sunk his ragged fingernails in. 

That got him yanked off Karsten's dick by his hair, and he was too busy hauling in a breath and wishing it made him feel any less dizzy to try to make sense of the faraway thunder of Karsten's voice. He was thrown onto the bed, and instinctively tried to twist away, lashing out with a hand and his opposite foot, and then Karsten had his wrist, both of his wrists, twisted up behind him and jerked Geralt's pants down, or maybe tore them open. 

Geralt screamed when Karsten's cock shoved into him. It felt like it was tearing him open, like that wasn't even a part of his body that was supposed to be able to open and Karsten had just shoved his cock through Geralt's flesh and inside him. 

Geralt couldn't really hear the scream, had to stop and cough and gasp for breath before he got far with it, and then Karsten's hand clamped down, not over his mouth, but around his already aching and spasming throat. 

He squeezed off Geralt's breath and blood. His vision started to darken again, the room going swimmy in a new way, the ringing in his ears getting louder. 

Geralt thought, _Oh, this is what the big boys were talking about. Cry or beg or just go limp and wait for it to be over. I wasn't supposed to bite, I was supposed to cry._

There was wetness flowing over Geralt's cheeks, and for that matter from his nose and down his chin and out of his ears, but he thought it was probably too late for that to help. Karsten let him gasp in half a breath, so he didn't quite pass out, and then choked it off again and resumed fucking him mercilessly. 

Geralt couldn't think, not really, but he didn't have to think to fight, or to know that he had to fight if he meant to survive this. It had gone too far, too fast, and he could feel that the man on his back wasn't going to stop. Karsten had to _be_ stopped.

Geralt had to stop him, a witcher in his full power who outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. With both hands held behind his back. Without being able to breathe. 

Everything went fuzzy, dark, and he felt himself going limp without even trying, felt himself slipping away. On his next gasp he was filled with the certainty that he had to do it now or never, and he had exactly one part of Karsten in his grasp, one place he could hurt a witcher.

Geralt clamped down, clenching his burning ass tight around Karsten's battering cock as it slammed into him. At the same time, he braced his feet on the bed. Holding on the only way he could, he swung his hips sideways with all the strength of his terror and the knowledge that this was his only chance.

Karsten screamed and jerked away from him, and then Geralt could breathe, move, scramble off the bed and dive for the door. He shoved the bar up--right into his own face, but he couldn't care about that. 

He crammed his fingers against the door lock, clumsily shaping the sign as he yelled, "_AARD!_" as loudly as he could, which hurt like fire though he wasn't sure he managed to make a sound. Still, he felt the power pulse from his hand and the lock shattered clear out of the heavy door, the ancient wood around it splintering. 

Geralt tried to step back so he could pull the door open, and a roaring weight struck him, slamming his head into the door. He managed to tuck his chin, taking the impact on forehead and cheek instead of nose or mouth, but everything after that was a formless, suspended moment that might have lasted hours or seconds. He couldn't feel anything, not pain, not terror, and he had infinite time to stare in blank fascination as a man's hand--one he thought he should recognize, by the patchy burn scars--as it appeared through the hole Geralt's Aard made in the door. Geralt watched the hand make a shape, a sign. That was--

_Quen._ Golden light engulfed him, pushing Karsten's hands off him and cushioning him as the door slammed inward, trapping Geralt between it and the stone wall. It was nice, almost, being in that little space without anyone touching him. He could breathe there, and sink against the wall.

The glow vanished like a soap bubble popping and Geralt tried frantically to get back on his feet, but it was Eskel in front of him. Geralt caught just a glimpse of a blond man--Olli, it was Olli, he had those burn scars on his fingers--gripping Karsten by the throat, his other hand extended toward Geralt and Eskel and the door. Eskel wrapped his arms around Geralt, Olli's fingers moved, and the glow was in place again with both of them inside it. 

Eskel dragged him out from behind the door, and Geralt did his best to cooperate, mainly by holding on to Eskel and not even trying to walk. He thought he could feel Eskel talking to him, but even with the shield muffling them from the rest of the world, he could only hear the faintest distant echo of Eskel's voice. His vision was blurry, but he saw man-sized shapes moving in the corridor; one planted himself between Geralt and Eskel and the door they'd just come out of, and others were rushing into Karsten's room. Geralt let his eyes close.

It was all right. Eskel would make sure he understood whatever he needed to know; that was how they always did it in their classes, covering for each other. Eskel would cover him now. 

Eskel kicked a door shut and Geralt looked around enough to see that they were in a different room--Olli's room--and then Eskel laid him down on the bed. It was soft, and Geralt felt vaguely sure that Olli was going to be annoyed with both of them when he saw Geralt's blood everywhere, to say nothing of the mess leaking from his eyes and mouth and ears.

Geralt thought maybe he was making a noise, too, just like he thought Eskel was talking to him, but it felt far away. Eskel wouldn't mind, though. The two of them knew what not to hear from each other, after eight years sharing a blanket more often than not through the darkest part of the night.

Eskel was--oh, cleaning him up, that was good. Necessary. The cloth he was using was wet, and stung in places that Geralt could tell would hurt a lot more when the adrenaline wore off, though Eskel's hands were steady and gentle. Geralt thought he should be able to smell what was on the cloth, but he couldn't smell anything except maybe blood. He swallowed, sniffled, trying to get his nose clear, and Eskel's face was suddenly close to his, the cool cloth wiping his nose and mouth and ears.

Eskel was scowling, saying something--something about Geralt's ears--but Geralt shrugged and closed his eyes. He would heal. He was better at healing than any of the boys; that's why he got extra trials. He could bear it. He could bear this too. 

After a while Geralt opened his eyes--one a lot wider than the other, but they both opened at least a little--to see Vesemir crouched in front of him, frowning. Geralt cleared his aching throat and said, "I was--Karsten."

Vesemir sighed and said, "I worked that out." He sounded far away but Geralt could understand, at least. He still hurt everywhere, and his ears were still ringing, but he thought that if he tried to pick his head up the room would probably hold still around him.

He didn't intend to actually try, but Vesemir's hand slid under his cheek, gentle despite the hard calluses, and Vesemir held up a small vial in his other hand: a potion.

Geralt shook his head quickly, or tried to; Vesemir's grip tightened, stilling him, before he did more than make himself a little dizzy. "I'm not that bad," Geralt insisted. "I don't need it, I just need some rest."

He was a coward and he knew it, but he couldn't bear the thought of the sick fever that would follow a potion, even one that helped everything else. And if this at last was the one he couldn't recover from...

A hand tightened on Geralt's hip--his hip didn't hurt, really, that was nice--and Geralt looked without moving his head to see Eskel, perched behind him on the bed. Eskel met his eyes steadily and nodded, mouthing, _Take it._

Eskel wouldn't tell him to if it might kill him; Vesemir had probably already explained to Eskel what was in the vial, and Eskel would understand.

Geralt gave a tiny nod back, then returned his gaze to Vesemir and opened his mouth like a baby bird. Vesemir guided him to turn and lift his head enough that the potion wouldn't run right back out of his mouth or choke him, and tipped it in.

It didn't hurt at all, in fact. It numbed his throat--so thoroughly that he thought he wouldn't be able to speak, but also couldn't feel any of the pain there anymore. It felt warm in his belly, and then all over, and Geralt felt even more tired than he had a second ago.

Vesemir looked at Eskel and said something--Geralt might have been able to tell what if he was trying harder, or at least looking at Vesemir, but it was just a series of vaguely word-shaped sounds, rising and falling like Vesemir's voice did. He was giving Eskel instructions, Geralt could tell that much, and Geralt watched Eskel's face settle into steady determination. 

Vesemir touched Geralt's chin--his chin also didn't hurt too badly, actually--and Geralt looked back at him. 

"You'll stay here," Vesemir said sternly. "With Eskel. I'm going to get this sorted out."

Geralt didn't know where Vesemir thought he might try to go right now, still waiting for the potion's teeth to sink in; he was definitely happy to have Vesemir take over handling things. 

"He," Geralt tried to say, before he knew he meant to say anything. He didn't think it made much of a sound, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to say anything at all, but Vesemir went absolutely still, listening-still, his gaze steady. Geralt swallowed spit that tasted like blood and stung his raw throat, and said, or at least mouthed, "He wasn't going to stop."

Vesemir grimaced, but there was something almost like pride in his eyes as he said, "I know. Rest now."

Geralt obediently closed his eyes, and was barely awake long enough to feel Eskel get off the bed and then lie down on it again, stretched out along Geralt's back, his hand settling again on Geralt's undamaged hip.

* * *

Geralt woke to find that the only golden light in the room came from a candle burning beside the bed, and that his hearing had improved enough that he could make out the little noises Eskel was making while he sucked Olli's cock. 

Geralt was still on the bed, tucked up against the wall with a blanket all the way around him so he wouldn't get cold from the stone. There was a pillow under his head and he could smell medicinal salves and his own blood, and a little of Olli and Eskel's sweat. His throat felt sore, which was better than the total numbness, and if there was any ill effect from the potion he couldn't tell it from the pain of his injuries and the overheating that came of having three in a bed. His right eye still wouldn't open fully and he thought that the right side of his head was going to hurt a lot more once he actually tried to move. 

He really was well enough to go sleep it off in the dormitory, now, but here he was still sharing Olli's bed. Olli was sitting up against the headboard, one hand resting very gently on Eskel's hair, the other fisted in the sheets. Geralt recognized that hand: he knew just what it looked like, casting Quen on him through a hole in a door. Olli had bruises on his knuckles now, so it hadn't been only sign-casting he did to get Geralt out of that room. 

Eskel was lying between Olli's legs, sucking him off in the same unhurried way he'd suck Geralt if they'd found a good hiding place and weren't going to be interrupted before they could both get at least one turn, maybe two. One of his hands was on Olli's thigh; the other rested on Geralt's hip, even now, slipping under the blanket to find his skin.

Geralt's throat still hurt, and the thought of putting his mouth on anyone's cock, even gentle Olli's, even _Eskel's_, made it want to close up altogether. But that was all right. Eskel had the cocksucking covered for tonight, so Geralt could make it up later. He was only supposed to rest for now. 

He squirmed his arm down under the blanket swaddling him and rested his hand over Eskel's, just so Eskel would know he was there, and slept again.

* * *

Geralt woke up at the feeling of a big body leaning over his, but his first startled gasp brought Vesemir's familiar scent, even more viscerally reassuring than the sight of his instructor bending over him. Although after another couple of seconds, he realized that maybe none of this was reassuring at all: Vesemir looked even older than he always did, weary and grim, and he'd come to find Geralt.

"Time to relocate you, that's all," Vesemir said. "Close your eyes. You need to rest. Even with that potion last night you need time to heal."

Geralt frowned--how was he to rest if he had to go somewhere?--but then Vesemir's hands slid under him, and Geralt was lifted as if he were a child. He remembered, with sudden disorienting clarity, Vesemir picking him up just so when he was small, three or four years old, and had crept out from Master Herrick's domain and then fallen asleep in some corner of the keep. Vesemir had found him and gathered him up, and Geralt had dozed off again before he was even returned to that warm room belowstairs that had been home until the summer he was eight. 

He was, he realized dimly, dozing again now, half-dreaming of being small again. It wouldn't have surprised him a bit if Vesemir really had taken him back to the littles' dormitory and tucked him in among the toddlers. He opened his eyes when he was laid on a soft, warm surface, but it wasn't the crowded confines of the littles' dorm. They were in the keep's big kitchen. It took Geralt a moment to work out that he was on a pallet on top of the big oven, the warm spot where Master Goran usually set pans of bread to rise. 

"Rest," Vesemir repeated. "You need another day or two to heal. When you're bored enough to ask for kitchen chores, we'll see about you coming back to training."

Geralt felt a rush of fear. "Am I--did I--"

"Hush," Vesemir said, running a hand over Geralt's hair. "You did nothing wrong. You aren't being punished. When you're well I'll push you as hard as I ever did, but you must _get well first_."

Geralt thought the hand that wasn't resting on his head made a small gesture, like a sign, but he was asleep before he could remember which it was.

* * *

Time passed in a cozy haze after that. Sometimes Vesemir or Master Goran made him eat or drink something, and sometimes he was helped down so he could use a pot, which was usually unpleasant in multiple directions at once, and then put back up on his pallet like another batch of dough being set out to rise. Sometimes Eskel was there next to him, not quite touching because it was too warm on top of the oven for sharing blankets, but close enough for Geralt to know he wasn't alone. Sometimes Goran was bustling about, with a batch of Bastion boys--the boys who weren't littles anymore but hadn't yet faced the Trial of the Grasses, who spent most of the year training out at the Bastion but returned to the keep for the winter like everyone else--doing kitchen chores as he prepared one meal or another. 

Once, Geralt opened his eyes and saw Vesemir and Goran sitting together near the big open hearth. It had to be nearly as warm there, so close to the fire, as it was here on top of the oven, but they sat pressed close together, without even the bare inch that separated him and Eskel where they lay. 

Geralt wondered if he and Eskel might sit like that when they were old, and came back to stay at Kaer Morhen all year and train boys to be witchers. When Eskel's hair was as white as Geralt's, so that it would all flow together just like the gray of Vesemir's hair with the gray of Goran's. Geralt would take over for Vesemir teaching sword work, maybe, and of course Eskel would take Master Corbin's place to teach signs. And at night they'd sit together by the fire, and...

The imagining faded seamlessly into dreaming.

* * *

The third morning--he thought it was the third, anyway--Geralt woke up and couldn't keep still anymore. He was alone. Eskel must have slipped out to be back in the dormitory before he was missed. That was probably what had woken Geralt. It wasn't properly light yet, but Master Goran was making the day's bread, and Geralt scooted down to the end of the oven and got down, gathering up the blankets of his pallet and folding them haphazardly into a compact shape.

When he'd found a spot out of the way to set them down, Goran said, "Put those pans up to rise," and Geralt got to it at double time, determined to prove himself fit before breakfast was served.

But when the morning's swarm of Bastion boys turned up to carry food out to the hall for breakfast, Goran told Geralt to stay put, setting a bowl of porridge and a mug in front of him at the table in the corner--and another bowl and mug across from him. Goran picked up a big tray to carry to the hall, maneuvering easily around someone coming in as he went out--Vesemir, who took the place across from Geralt.

Geralt dropped his gaze and started in on his porridge, and Vesemir sat and did the same without speaking for a while. Geralt scraped his bowl clean, drank down every drop of his mushroom tea, and sat attentively, waiting for Vesemir to tell him what was next.

He didn't know what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t for Vesemir to reach into a belt pouch and bring out a medallion--no, two halves of a medallion. It had been broken by some blow that left the edges of the metal sheared so they didn't fit together anymore.

Geralt felt suddenly a little sick, and he knew what it meant even before Vesemir said, "Karsten is dead."

Geralt didn't know if he was supposed to say something; his hand moved toward the medallion and he jerked back before he touched it, pressing both hands into his lap. He couldn't look away from it. He couldn't look at Vesemir.

"Had to be done," Vesemir said gruffly. "No knowing what he might think he could get away with when he _wasn't_ under my eye, but he's probably done worse before now, and to people who wouldn't have healed as well as you. Can't have anyone like that walking around wearing a wolf medallion."

Geralt's ears were ringing again, like they had after. Like they had _during_.

Vesemir didn't ask him if he understood, didn't force Geralt to meet his eyes. He just sat there eating porridge while Geralt tried to think of what to do next, what to ask, what he couldn't ask. _Did you want me to do that so you'd be sure he was a monster? Did you let this happen to me? Would you have let it happen to Eskel?_

_Are you sure it wasn't my fault for fighting back?_

"That's yours, if you want it," Vesemir said after a time, and Geralt was startled into meeting his gaze. "Not to wear," Vesemir added, with a twitch of his lips. "Just to remember."

Geralt shook his head. He didn't want anything of Karsten's anywhere near him. 

Vesemir nodded shallowly and palmed the broken medallion, making it disappear again. "You've also a right to a share of what he left--you could choose a blade to keep for when you start getting your weapons and gear together in a few years."

Geralt shook his head harder, even though he knew how the boys in the oldest cohort were scrambling to get the best blades they could, to make potions and collect supplies, in anticipation of the Trial of the Mountains and then the Path. Karsten's blade in his hand would feel like as much of a threat to himself as any monsters he might chance to meet.

"All right, I'll tell the others your portion is deferred. Is there anything you do want, to draw a line under this and call it done?"

_Draw a line_ made Geralt's hand go to his right shoulder before he could think better of it, and he looked over at Vesemir. From the pinched look on his face, Vesemir knew what kind of lines Geralt was thinking of, and didn't like it.

Karsten hadn't given Geralt a tally mark, and now Karsten was dead and never could. Geralt didn't think he'd have wanted one if Karsten had tried to do it--even if he'd managed to cry instead of fighting, go limp and play dead and get it over with, he didn't think he'd want the lesson Karsten had taught him marked on his skin that way.

And yet... Afon had left a mark on him that anyone could see. Even _Olli_, gentle as he was, had left Geralt with a tidy little scar. But in a few more days Geralt wouldn't even have bruises from what Karsten had done, and that wasn't right either. It shouldn't just disappear, as if it had never happened because it ended before Geralt got hurt worse, or because Karsten was dead now.

"A mark?" Vesemir prompted, sounding very dry and neutral--leading Geralt along to state his reasoning, just as he'd ask Geralt to describe what tactic he'd use in some given scenario. "Is that what you want?"

Geralt shrugged, his mouth working on words he wasn't sure he could say--but he didn't want Vesemir to think he thought this had been some prank he'd pulled off, to be rewarded with a mark of honor, even if it sounded cowardly to say anything else. 

He took a breath and said carefully, "I want it not to have happened. I want Karsten not to have been like that. But it happened, and Karsten did that, and... it should leave a scar. It wasn't how it's supposed to go, not like..." Geralt squeezed his shoulder where the marks were, marks he would count over with his fingers and hoped to add to. Marks he was proud of earning, lessons he'd been glad to learn. 

"But it _happened_, and it was..." Geralt gestured helplessly and repeated, "It happened. It ought to show."

"Hm," Vesemir said, in the way that meant Geralt had suggested some maneuver that wasn't precisely what Vesemir would have laid out for him, but wasn't impossible either. Geralt felt a little warmed at that; it meant Vesemir would listen and maybe even talk it out with him, considering the possibilities.

Vesemir studied him for a moment, then said, "Geralt, do you know what a bastard is? Not just the insult--do you know what it means?"

Geralt didn't let himself be thrown by a feint from an unexpected angle; he'd learned better than that when he was still a Bastion boy. "A person whose birth was illegitimate--parents not married to each other, and maybe one or both married to other people."

Vesemir nodded. "And do you know why that's an insult?"

Geralt took a second to consider. He thought he was starting to see the line of Vesemir's attack, but he couldn't get distracted by that yet; he had to answer the question before him. "It's an insult to one's parents, because they behaved dishonestly. Dishonorably. And to have dishonorable parents is shameful."

Vesemir nodded again. "Did you know that sometimes bastards are acknowledged by their fathers? Noble fathers, especially, even kings, when they father children even dishonorably, they still claim them and say, this is my child."

The shape was coming clearer now, and Geralt could let himself trace it; Vesemir hadn't actually asked a question that time.

"And such a child might even wear his father's arms, his symbol--but not the same way a legitimate son would. He wears them with a left-hand mark, to denote that he is a son, acknowledged, but not the same as his legitimate brothers, because he was not born in honor."

Geralt released his grip on his right shoulder, and tentatively raised his other hand to touch his left. "It was a--a bastard trial, what Karsten did," Geralt reasoned out. "It was sort of like when one of the others took me to bed, but--done wrong. Without honor. Breaking the rules."

Vesemir nodded. "And it's yours now. He gets no say; what you survived belongs to you. You can acknowledge it, wear its sign, or not. That's up to you."

"But on the left," Geralt said. "Because it's not the same, so it doesn't count along with the others. It's something different."

Vesemir nodded. 

"Yes," Geralt said. "Yes, please. I want a left-hand mark."

Vesemir sighed and shook his head a little, but he was smiling a little too. He set his belt knife on the table, and when he stood up to go get the Seal salve he paused for a moment to rest his hand on the crown of Geralt's head. 

"If that's what you want, to be finished with this," he said finally. "So be it."


	3. Chapter 3

For the rest of that winter, after Karsten, the witchers staying at Kaer Morhen seemed to think that touching Geralt, or even looking at him too closely, would bring down Vesemir's wrath--and his blade. Even Eskel didn't invite any messing around under the blankets for a long while after, well past the time when Geralt's hearing went entirely back to normal and his cheekbone had knit together and his bruises faded.

Geralt didn't notice himself until he realized _he_ wanted to, and that he hadn't wanted to for weeks before then, and that Eskel was being careful with him. Half a minute later he was under the blankets with his mouth on Eskel's cock. He didn't let himself hesitate long enough to wonder whether it would feel different now, and then it didn't. So that was all right. _Geralt_ was all right.

If he took to practicing Quen in every moment he could spare, well. Signs were important--they could be the difference between life and death--and Quen was as important as any. Eskel practiced with him sometimes, not giving advice but letting Geralt silently absorb the way he did it; Eskel had always been quicker at learning signs than Geralt was. He didn't seem to mind the extra Quen practice either.

The Trial of the Dreams, that spring, fell like a curtain between him and everything that had come before. By the following summer, his memories of Karsten had faded enough that Geralt felt only a thrill of something that could have been excitement when a witcher called him away after supper. He had little flinches, tells--he didn't like to have his hair grabbed, tensed up if he went to his knees while the witcher was still fully clothed--but it was all right. 

No one else was like Karsten. The witchers who returned to Kaer Morhen were mostly good men--not always kind, rarely nice, but still good--just looking for a bit of pleasure and a warm bed. Geralt hid the flinches until there was nothing left to hide, and learned all over again that he liked sex, liked getting fucked, liked touching and being touched, the warmth of a shared bed and the warmth of a man's smile when Geralt had pleased him. 

By the summer after that, when he turned sixteen, he'd almost forgotten why he and Eskel had decided that Quen was the sign they wanted to master first, why Eskel could cast it onto Geralt and kept trying to teach Geralt the technique, even though they both knew Geralt couldn't do everything with signs that Eskel could. 

Geralt still hadn't gotten the hang of it that summer, but his Quen was miles better than anyone else in their cohort but Eskel's. Master Corbin had mostly given up on teaching Eskel anything about signs already, and mostly just set the rest of them using signs against him.

On one of those particularly bright, cloudless summer afternoons they got now and then, Geralt and the others were set against Eskel and Master Corbin for sign drills. They had to cast signs--mostly uselessly--until they were exhausted, until their twitching fingers couldn't bring forth a spark or a breath of air, and then they had to attack with swords, instead, until their arms were shaking and their swings went weak and wild. 

Then Master Corbin called a halt, and let them rest and drink water until they could do it all over again.

The pale stone of the courtyard walls reflected back a dazzle of brilliant sunlight from every direction; it was almost impossible to tell whether time was passing until abruptly the sun sank below the battlements, dropping them all into chilly shadows. Master Corbin called for one last round of attacks, and Geralt threw himself into it, casting signs and swinging his blunted sword. 

The others fell away until it was only him and Eskel, and Geralt could see that Eskel was nearly as exhausted as he was. Still, neither of them would back down before the other, so they fought on and on, Geralt's sword work stronger than Eskel's, Eskel's signs stronger than Geralt's. Neither one ever got the upper hand for more than a few seconds, until Master Corbin finally thrust them apart with a neatly aimed Aard.

Geralt stumbled and went to his knees on the flagstones, and he immediately looked to see that Eskel had fallen too. Geralt grinned, and Eskel scowled first, but then grinned back.

Eskel pushed to his feet, and Geralt followed suit, already feeling his strained muscles protesting, and all the bumps and bruises and scrapes and cuts that would be much more irritating when the last of the fighting rush had worn off. At least he'd fall asleep fast tonight, exhausted as he was; he could already feel the strange mental emptiness of flinging too many spells too fast, the perfect concentration it required suddenly releasing into blankness.

Motion out of the corner of his eye--not any of his cohort or Master Corbin, not any of the familiar figures he saw daily and therefore barely saw at all--caught Geralt's attention. It was a witcher, still dusty from the road, straightening up from where he'd been leaning in a shadowed spot, watching. 

He was looking directly at Geralt, and his small beckoning gesture was as good as a shout. Geralt sheathed his practice sword and walked over, smiling even though weariness settled over him more heavily at every step. "Welcome home, Master Witcher."

When he got close, Geralt could see that the witcher was on the young end, for those who returned to Kaer Morhen. New witchers tended to stay away for at least a few years, perhaps to be sure they wouldn't be mistaken for boys in training on their first visit back. This one was just about solidly into his prime, the point when a witcher would scarcely show any signs of aging at all. He must have been on the Path close to ten years; Geralt thought he looked vaguely familiar, in fact.

"Geralt," he said, and reached out to ruffle Geralt's sweaty hair. "I almost didn't recognize you, with this."

Geralt realized he did know how old this witcher was, more or less; Geralt had been five years old, and his hair an ordinary human color, when he'd watched him depart for the Trial of the Mountains. 

"Slava," Geralt said, smiling wider. "Welcome home indeed."

Slava looked him up and down, and Geralt felt himself flush warmer. He'd idolized all the older boys, to say nothing of the grown witchers, when he was small. Slava had been one of those who occasionally turned a smile or a kind word his way, even if Geralt strayed from Master Herrick's domain, where the littles belonged. He had once paused to correct Geralt's grip on a wooden training sword still too big for a toddler's soft little hands. Geralt had reserved a special measure of devotion for Slava, and having Slava return any amount of attention and interest now was more exciting than it should have been. 

"Looked good out there," Slava said, smiling warmly. "Guess you don't need my pointers anymore, huh?"

"Well," Geralt said, letting his own gaze roam boldly up and down Slava's body, hard and solid under his witcher's gear. "There's always more to learn."

Slava laughed at that and squeezed Geralt's shoulder, giving him a little shake. "Tonight? Join me upstairs?"

Geralt nodded eagerly, smiling back, and Slava gave him a little push. "Go join your group, then. I'll see you in the hall."

Geralt nodded again and hurried away to where Eskel lingered alone in the courtyard, right where he had been standing when Geralt walked away. Eskel turned to fall into step with him as soon as Geralt reached him, heading after the others who were already making for the well to rinse off the day's sweat.

"Slava?" Eskel repeated, with a rising tone that was both a question and a mocking imitation of Geralt's excitement on recognizing the witcher. The Trial of the Dreams had left Eskel with hearing even better than Geralt's; he'd obviously heard all of it.

"He passed the Trial of the Mountains the year before you came," Geralt said with a shrug. "If I'd already met you I'm sure I'd have been much harder to impress." 

Eskel snorted, and looked over at him with a half-suppressed smile. 

He obviously remembered as well as Geralt did, the way Geralt had instantly adopted Eskel as his personal new boy to harass through the correct way of doing absolutely everything at Kaer Morhen. Geralt didn't know if Eskel understood the determination that had underlain it: he had taken one look at that dark-haired boy with the obstinate look on his face and decided, right then, that they were going to face the Trials together and come out the other side as witchers. Geralt had had to make sure that happened, and that meant making sure Eskel learned to do things the right way as quickly as possible.

And, Geralt reflected, after that he'd been so busy managing Eskel, or getting into mischief with Eskel, or competing with Eskel, that whole cohorts of witchers graduated without Geralt noticing them much at all. So it was true; Slava wouldn't have impressed him, if he'd already had Eskel around.

Geralt had been silent too long, though, and Eskel elbowed him. Geralt couldn't say what he'd been thinking, so he elbowed back, and they shoved each other back and forth until they were nearly wrestling by the time they reached the well, just in time for Gwilim to throw a bucket of water over both of them.

They swung around in perfect coordination, shoulder to shoulder. Gwilim threw the bucket itself, and Geralt's whole tired body ached as he braced himself to catch it--it was big, heavy, wet, and traveling fast--and then Eskel flung a hand out, sketching Yrden with only a murmured word and casting the sign into thin air. 

Geralt stared as the bucket passed through the spot where Eskel must have placed the trap, and it slowed as Geralt stepped forward, arms out. The bucket dropped into his hands as gently as if Gwilim had just handed it to him.

Geralt looked at Gwilim to confirm that he was still as far away as he had been, and found Gwilim goggling at them. Geralt looked to Eskel then, and Eskel had the shadow of a smirk on his lips, his shoulders settling into a satisfied line. 

"Now who's easily impressed?" Eskel asked, and walked off past Geralt and Gwilim both, headed toward the dormitory to change into dry clothes for supper. 

Geralt tossed the bucket at Gwilim--from only a stride away--and followed on Eskel's heels, hissing, "How did you _do_ that?" 

Geralt's Yrden scarcely slowed anyone down even when he cast it in a normal way, on the _ground_, and of course he still had to say his signs as well as shaping them with his hand. 

Eskel glanced back. "Oh, _this_ time you'll understand if I tell you?" 

Geralt snarled, Eskel grinned, and then they were both running for the dormitory.

* * *

Geralt was ravenous, and excited for the night ahead with Slava, so that he could hardly sit still in his spot on the bench at supper. Eskel and Aubry both had elbowed him half a dozen times before any of them had to refill their cups from the pitcher. 

That lasted until he'd cleaned his plate once and started in on seconds, and then the food started to reach his stomach, heavy and warm, and Geralt was abruptly almost too tired to raise his spoon to his mouth. He leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, and picked at his food, bit by bit, struggling to keep his eyes open. 

He could feel Eskel watching him, maybe worried, maybe just curious to see if he was actually going to go face down in what was left of his food. They'd both come close to it before; witcher training had been pushing them to their limits since they were eight years old, even as those limits stretched further and further. 

Geralt didn't look over at Eskel and didn't say anything. He didn't have the energy to handle whatever look would be on Eskel's face, whatever question would be in Eskel's eyes or on his lips. So he just kept himself braced up and tried not to stop moving completely.

He hadn't dozed off for more than a second when the end of the meal was called, and they all stood up at once, benches scraping on the stone floor as they moved. Geralt bit back a noise of his own; he'd stiffened up while sitting still on the bench, and every part of his body protested now. Geralt stretched, wincing, and still had both arms raised above his head when he caught sight of Slava walking toward him. 

Geralt dropped his hands hurriedly to his sides, his whole body jolted awake with the horrible thought that Slava might have thought Geralt was waving to him, so overeager that he was trying to draw Slava's attention when they'd already agreed on the night. But Slava was smiling when he reached Geralt, with the same pleased look he'd had after watching Geralt train. 

His expression altered slightly, turning more serious, as he looked past Geralt, over his shoulder. He gave a firm little nod, and Geralt remembered the way Afon had looked toward Vesemir before taking him upstairs for his first time--but when Geralt glanced over, he saw Eskel, already turning away. Geralt looked back to Slava, feeling oddly off-balance, but Slava just gave him another smile, one Geralt couldn't quite read, and wrapped his hand around the back of Geralt's neck, tugging him along toward the stairs.

Slava left his hand there, giving Geralt plenty of time to feel how big it was--how warm and hard with calluses, how strong--while Slava steered him up the stairs and along the corridor of rooms where the visiting witchers slept. Geralt had been up here with enough different witchers at enough different times that he'd been into most of the rooms along the hallway. Never the first on the left, for some reason, but he'd started to form pointless preferences among the others. He smiled a little, foolishly, when Slava steered him to the fourth door on the right--the room where Olli had stayed, the last few winters.

It looked nearly exactly the same with Slava's gear instead of Olli's arrayed inside--most witchers, Geralt had learned, sorted out their gear for cleaning and drying and mending and checking in the same ways. It always smelled faintly different, though. A different balance of collected herbs, a different scent to his sweat.

Geralt noticed, glancing around, there was _less_ gear than he usually saw. Two swords hung up in their scabbards, but no other weapons except the plain dagger Slava carried at his waist, for eating and other small tasks. Barely two changes of clothes, and more empty jars and pouches than herbs and potions. No furs or trinkets and scarcely any books or papers.

The Path hadn't been kind to Slava lately. No wonder he'd come back to Kaer Morhen, the only place where a Wolf witcher could be sure of a welcome, and as much kindness as other witchers had to offer.

Geralt himself was a part of that kindness, offering pleasure and a warm bed, and he snapped his focus away from the room and onto Slava. The witcher was sitting on the edge of the bed, easing out of his boots, and Geralt reached out as if to help with that. Slava shook his head, waving Geralt off, and said, with a little smile and another warm up-and-down look, "Take yours off for me?"

Geralt moved hesitantly toward the bed, and Slava's smile widened as he tilted his head toward the place next to him. Geralt sat down beside him then, to take off his boots, nearly as good as the ones a new witcher would be sent off in--though not quite, because Geralt's feet hadn't stopped growing. Slava took off his belt next, and then his shirt, and Geralt followed him at each step.

It felt strange, though he couldn't have said why exactly. Most of the time he got naked shortly after entering a witcher's room, and most of the time the witcher did too. There was no point being shy about it, and Geralt didn't even mind when they wanted to sit back and watch him strip, taking a leisurely look at what they were about to get. But it was never quite like this, side by side. 

It occurred to him that this was more like something he would do with Eskel than with a witcher, except he wouldn't do this with Eskel, either, sitting together, looking, undressing without either hesitating or hurrying. He and Eskel played around together, shared blankets as often as they could get away with, were friends in everything, but they weren't... this, whatever this was. 

He and Slava were naked before Geralt could worry about it too much, both of them hard, so it wouldn't take too long to get on with things. That was probably for the best, because Geralt was liable to fall asleep if Slava dragged things out--for now the excitement of it was keeping him going, but once he was anywhere close to lying down, he wouldn't be keeping his eyes open long.

He looked over at Slava, meaning to ask him what he wanted, and where, but the words in his mouth were overtaken by a huge yawn. 

Geralt tried to swallow it, tried to explain that he wasn't bored or uninterested, just tired, but Slava laughed, shaking his head. "No, no, I understand. Long days, I remember. I won't keep you up too much longer. Hands and knees, on the bed?"

It struck Geralt, as he moved where Slava wanted him, that Slava kept saying these things like questions--as if Geralt might argue with him, or say no. Geralt shook his head a little at the thought, at Slava's excessively careful kindness, and then he felt Slava on the bed behind him, his knees between Geralt's, and he didn't worry about it anymore. Fucking was fucking, and he didn't mind if Slava wanted to be nice about it. 

Slava _was_ nice about it, but as promised, he didn't make Geralt wait too long. Slava pressed in with oiled fingers first, feeling around like he needed to learn the terrain of Geralt's ass. Some witchers liked to do that, and Geralt didn't mind it as long as they didn't try to make him come like that before getting fucked, which--as his and Eskel's experiments had taught them--was less fun than it seemed like it would be.

Geralt didn't have to worry about that, though. Slava was pretty quick about it, just a few stroking twists of his fingers, and then he eased them out and slicked his cock up instead. Geralt had already gotten a pretty good look at it, undressing next to each other, so he closed his eyes and remembered to breathe the right way, and then Slava was pushing into him. 

The moment when it felt weird instead of definitely either good or bad stretched out, and Geralt let his head hang, glaring at his own cock. He was hard enough, he should be ready for this, he was just--

Slava's hand pressed between his shoulder blades, and Geralt let his elbows buckle, folding his forearms across each other so he could hide his face against the wrists. Slava pulled out of him and pushed back in, and the new angle was better; Geralt let out an appreciative noise and wriggled a little. Slava laughed again, and rubbed that hand up and down Geralt's back while the other folded around Geralt's hip to steady him. 

Geralt kept making noises, since Slava was very obviously the type who wanted to know that Geralt liked it, and might even get worried if he thought Geralt didn't. There was no chance of that, though; Geralt hadn't messed around with Eskel in a few days, and there hadn't been any witchers visiting for weeks before Slava turned up. He was thoroughly ready to get fucked and like it, and it was _Slava_ and he'd shown up and looked for Geralt, asked for him, and--

It took hardly any time at all, the pleasure rising to a peak so fast that he almost couldn't enjoy it. His slightly embellished noises became completely real and involuntary, little cries and groans pushed out of him by Slava's cock. He grabbed the sheet--_linen_, and it was still a little bit wonderful and funny no matter how many times he came up here--and clutched it in both hands, trying to hold back, knowing it wouldn't help much.

Slava's hand slid up his back and over his shoulder, holding him steady while Slava kept fucking him. It felt just like the way Slava had touched him in the courtyard, friendly, but with Slava's thumb brushing over his bare skin now, over his tally-mark scars. Geralt gave one last cry and came, his whole body tensing and releasing in waves, clenching around Slava inside him, his cock spilling onto his own chest and the sheet under him.

Geralt dropped straight from that height into a sleepy fog, his whole body going limp. He was aware, from a long way off, of Slava pressing close to his back, Slava murmuring something.

A sharp pinch on his nipple snapped Geralt awake again. "Yeah! Yeah, what?"

Slava huffed a laugh. "You can go back to sleep, just tell me, is it all right if I finish, or should I tuck you in to bed first?"

Slava was still inside him, still hard; Geralt could feel the humming tension in the bigger, stronger body stretched over his. Slava was careful to be kind--absurdly so now, as if it would have made any difference what he did if he'd let Geralt pass out like he was about to. 

Geralt shook his head, a silly smile stretching his mouth. "Tuck me in after, s'all right. What I'm here for."

Slava's hand spread out against Geralt's chest then, his warm palm soothing away the little sting, and Slava said, "All right, then, pup, go back to sleep."

Geralt nodded, squirming a little as he rested his cheek against the softness of the linen. He was aware of Slava moving over and in him for a while, slow and steady as the lapping of the mountain lake against the shore--and as welcome, as familiar and safe, as the cold of the lake was in summer. The motion rocked Geralt back to sleep before he could even start to dream.

* * *

Geralt's hand was flashing through Quen before he was fully awake, and he was scrambling out from under the crushing weight, away from the arm around his throat, off the bed and onto the stone floor. The jolt woke him further, and he saw the two pairs of boots lined up neatly by the end of the bed, and then he saw Slava scrambling to sit up--and Slava was covered in a golden glow of his own. Slava had cast Quen too, alone in a room in Kaer Morhen with just Geralt, who had been asleep.

Slava's eyes were wide, his shoulders rising and falling too rapidly, and then he pressed his hands to his face and curled down, elbows landing on his knees.

Nightmare. Slava had been having a nightmare, had lashed out somehow and Geralt had cast Quen on himself because for a second it reminded him of being in a very different witcher's bed. And Slava had been scared enough, as _he_ woke, to cast Quen as well. And he hadn't dropped it yet, even though he'd obviously realized what had happened, and that there was no danger.

There _was_ no danger. Geralt focused on making the shield drop before it would have dissipated on its own; he didn't need it and if Slava looked he should see that Geralt knew that. He got up and lit a candle, signing Igni with just one finger, keeping his wrist still, so that he didn't melt half the wax and maybe set the table on fire.

Then Geralt got down on his knees--he wouldn't stand over Slava, and he wouldn't let Slava think he was walking away, as if one little sleep-tussle had been too much for him. 

"Hey," Geralt said softly, walking on his knees until they were almost between Slava's feet on the bare stone floor. Slava's Quen was fading, but Geralt wasn't going to touch him without warning, not after a nightmare like that must have been. 

Sleeping all in one room with other boys for his whole life, Geralt had seen his share of nightmares, as well as having his own share of them. He'd never seen a grown witcher have one, but then grown witchers saw things Geralt probably couldn't imagine, no matter how thoroughly he studied the bestiaries and how many stories he listened to.

Slava sighed and lowered his hands to dangle between his knees. He met Geralt's eyes and looked tired, in a much worse way than Geralt had felt earlier tonight, and older than he had when he was smiling in the sunny courtyard. 

Geralt studied his face, waiting for some sign of how he could help. 

Slava dropped his gaze. "I had a contract," he said quietly. "It went wrong on me about five different ways, including some I didn't know were possible. Since then I--" Slava waved vaguely behind him, at the place where he'd been lying while they slept. "I couldn't--I didn't dare to sleep with anyone out there, I could have hurt them. But I thought here... it's safe here, I know it's safe here. I thought it would be all right."

"It was, though," Geralt said immediately. Slava frowned, and Geralt leaned back just enough to gesture at himself. "I'm fine. Nothing happened, I cast Quen before you could even give me a black eye or something." He remembered Slava standing in the courtyard the day before, and added, "And you knew I could, didn't you? You watched me fight and watched me cast signs, before you asked. You didn't bring some kid to bed for his first trial. You knew I could look after myself long enough for you to wake up. And I did, and you did."

Slava sighed, but he reached out for Geralt as he did it, setting one hand on Geralt's shoulder, the other on his cheek. 

"I didn't want to be alone," Slava admitted. "Not tonight. Tomorrow I'm to see Master Alwyn--there's a ritual for this, cleansing poison out of the mind the same way we all know how to cleanse it from the blood. I didn't want to just... lie here thinking about how that's going to go."

Geralt swallowed and nodded. He thought of the foul-tasting medicines he'd been given when he was small, whenever there was some illness going around through the littles--the only ones at Kaer Morhen still capable of catching diseases. Master Alwyn used to say, "The worse it tastes, the more good it does you." 

Would it be like that? Hurting, but cleansing, the way the trials made them sick and weak to make them strong?

Slava was still looking quietly at him, but his thumb came to rest at the corner of Geralt's mouth, and Geralt focused on the witcher in front of him again. "So, how should we distract you now?"

Slava smiled, still looking tired, and didn't quite meet Geralt's eyes. He was looking at Geralt's lips; Geralt licked them, anticipating what Slava would ask for, but then Slava said, "Have you ever--probably none of the witchers, but--you and--and a friend, maybe..."

Geralt could hear the spot where Slava carefully hadn't said Eskel's name, loud as a shout.

"Do you ever kiss?" Slava asked softly. "For practice, maybe?"

Geralt shook his head slowly, frowning a little. He'd never thought of it; kissing was something you did with ladies. Kissing was for love, for feeling something beyond just the pleasure of getting off together. 

But Geralt did feel something--not love, of course, but a tender, aching urge to be kind, to fix this night for Slava. Maybe that was enough. 

"Do you want to?" Geralt prompted, when Slava still didn't say anything, just brushed his thumb over Geralt's lower lip. 

Slava nodded, letting his eyes slip shut, and said, "Only if--"

Geralt huffed and rose up on his knees, not bothering to wait for Slava to _ask him_ again. He pressed his mouth clumsily to Slava's, certain he knew how a kiss went until it was happening. 

Slava made a noise against Geralt's lips, and the hand on Geralt's cheek moved to the back of his head, guiding him to tilt at the angle Slava wanted. He felt Slava's lips part, closing warm and firm and strange and _amazing_ on Geralt's lower lip, and then Geralt opened his mouth too, and the kiss only got wetter and hotter. Slava pulled back a few times, just enough to redirect or regain control when Geralt got overenthusiastic, but Geralt couldn't mind that. It was like sparring, like being taught a new set of moves. Slava was the one who knew what the hell he was doing here.

Still, Geralt wasn't new to _all_ of this. He was kneeling between Slava's thighs, so it didn't take him long to notice Slava getting hard. He could feel the extra tension in Slava's legs even before he slid one of his hands up to wrap around Slava's cock.

Slava exhaled into the kiss, and Geralt tipped his head back. "Let me?"

Slava closed his eyes and kissed Geralt again, lightly this time, soft and not pressing, and Geralt thought Slava was going to make this difficult, make Geralt convince him, but then Slava sighed again and nodded, then scooted back on the bed, breaking Geralt's light grip. "Here, you don't need to be kneeling on the floor."

Geralt followed him right up onto the bed, kneeling between Slava's thighs. This time, though, Slava leaned back against the pillows, tucking one arm behind his head and looking up at Geralt with an expression Geralt couldn't read in the dimness. 

Geralt thought for a second of Olli, the good-natured witcher who'd saved his life and never rushed a boy through a blowjob. He wondered if Olli and Slava knew each other, and it occurred to him suddenly that Olli was older than Slava, old enough that he might have known Slava like this, when Slava was still in training. Geralt's eyes went to Slava's shoulder, where there must be a row of little tally scars like his own. 

Slava smiled a little and said lightly, "Forgot how it works? Never done it on the bed?"

Geralt rolled his eyes and said with pointed dignity, "Just choosing my angle of attack, Master Witcher."

"Oh, well then." Slava tucked the other arm behind his head as well, stretching out for Geralt to look at him like a map spread out on a table. "Take your time, youngster. I'll save the critique for after."

Geralt grinned, hearing the teasing echo of Vesemir's familiar voice in Slava's.

Then he looked down, studying Slava's body in earnest and wondering what angle would fit best for his vague impulse--not just to get Slava off, but to care for him. His and Eskel's various experiments flitted through his mind, but that was playful, kid stuff, not this. Whatever this was.

Well, he'd make it up as he went along, then. From the stories he'd heard, a lot of what a witcher did boiled down to that anyway.

The most prominent feature of Slava's body--aside, of course, from his cock, blood-flushed and hard against his belly--was the scar that carved across his abdomen just above it. It ran from his left side all the way down to his right hip, and Geralt couldn't tell the color of it in this faint light, but he could see that it was still much darker than the surrounding skin, probably a livid bright pink. 

Slava hadn't given him an opportunity to see it, before. Did he think Geralt would be put off by it, or did he just not want to be asked about it?

Geralt curled down, breathed hot and wet over the head of Slava's cock, and then curled his hand around Slava's hip, his thumb brushing the end of the scar, slicker than the skin around it. 

Slava made a startled noise--not pained, and not displeased, so Geralt was on the right track, or at least not the wrong one. Geralt leaned forward, nuzzling along the track of the scar, not quite on it, not lingering, just tracing it, touching it, showing that it wasn't something he was going to recoil from. At the high end of the scar, Geralt found himself with his mouth just above Slava's chest, and his nipple, darker than the scar, was a tight point.

That _could_ be sort of interesting to touch, Geralt knew, so he breathed there, too, and got an encouraging squirm. He grinned, flicking a glance up at Slava's face to see that his expression wasn't quite that teasing unconcern from before. He was getting somewhere, then. Geralt licked, scraping his teeth over damp skin, until Slava groaned, half a laugh, and raised one leg to curl around Geralt's hip, encouraging him to move on. 

Geralt moved to the other side, teasing at that nipple until he heard Slava's breath catch, and then he moved higher again, nuzzling at a scar across his collarbone and up to his throat, all exposed with his head tipped back on the pillow. Slava groaned and broke, catching the nape of Geralt's neck and pulling him up to kiss again as he tightened his leg around Geralt, urging him down.

Geralt obeyed, letting his weight rest on Slava, their cocks not quite aligned but pressed tight between them, their chests rubbing together. Slava kept kissing him, getting a hand on Geralt's ass to make him move, and it was a lot like what he and Eskel had done as kids when they first figured out that friction in the right places was a lot of fun. 

Slava tipped them sideways, and then it was easier to kiss, even if the rubbing together got less efficient. But that just meant they could linger here, thrusting unevenly against each other, touching everywhere and kissing all wet and sweet and easy. They were so _close_ like this, face to face and mouths swapping spit and breath while their cocks pressed together. Geralt was vaguely aware that he had his arms wrapped around Slava, holding on for more than just the necessity of keeping himself in the right position. 

He thought dimly that it was like all the best parts of fucking without the mess and the ache. The hot friction and all that touching and being open to someone, having someone pushing against him and holding him tight. It was only good, and exactly as good for each of them in exactly the same way, and that was--was--

Geralt lost track of the thought, washed out in the rising tide of pleasure. Slava nipped at his lip and laughed against his mouth, his hand on Geralt's ass helping him keep the rhythm, and then Geralt was coming in between them with a startled little cry, and Slava tipped him onto his back and thrust against the mess on his belly until he came too. 

He went heavy over Geralt, but it was good--like a blanket, like a roof over him. Like Quen wrapped around him. Geralt tried to wrap himself around Slava, too, and then he was asleep again.

* * *

Geralt woke up to find himself alone in an empty room--not even Slava's gear had been left behind. Slava was already gone, off to his next trial. Geralt lay there a moment, wishing he'd been taught to believe in any god worth asking to help Slava come through it safely, and then he stood and dressed and stripped the bed. He touched his shoulder and wasn't really surprised to find a new tally-mark scar; of course Slava wouldn't have forgotten to give him the mark he'd earned. No surprise that the familiar little sting hadn't woken him, tired as he was and knowing he was safe in Slava's bed.

Geralt took the sheets to the laundry and then headed to the room he shared with his cohort in the dormitory. It was still early; Eskel, on his bed in the best corner spot, was just waking with a yawn. For a moment Eskel blinked at nothing, unguarded and exposed, not yet realizing Geralt was there. Geralt felt a familiar twinge of tender protectiveness, something he'd maybe felt thousands of times before without ever having to notice it.

Eskel's lips were a little chapped, and his mouth would be sour with sleep. Geralt thought of how it would feel to kiss them, how it would feel to lay down with Eskel, naked and playful like when they were younger. How it would be to feel all of Eskel's skin against his, to push back and forth and roll each other over this way and that and--

Geralt closed his eyes and pushed that thought fiercely away from himself. He and Eskel were friends and they shared blankets and they fucked sometimes, and they were witchers. Witchers didn't love, and they certainly didn't love other witchers. 

"Wore you out that good, huh? Falling asleep on your feet?" Eskel said, the words stretching around a yawn, and Geralt opened his eyes to glare and get on with kicking Eskel out of bed. 

This was what they were. This was what they did. Anything else wasn't worth wondering about.


	4. Chapter 4

By the following winter, the tally marks on Geralt's shoulder made nearly a perfect square--they felt like that, when he brushed his fingers over them, a square of slightly irregular scars. It was hard to count each one with his fingers, but he knew from the glimpses he'd had in mirrors and his own reckoning that there were twenty-three of them. 

He wasn't sure exactly how many active Wolf witchers there were out on the Path, and he did know that some of the tally marks on his shoulder belonged to dead men--not just the left-hand one for Karsten, either. Still, he could look around at the witchers sparring in the hall on the first night of winter and think _got him_ about more of them than he couldn't. 

A lot more than he couldn't, actually.

One of the few who hadn't marked him yet was a witcher nearer to Master Vesemir's age than Geralt's, one who hadn't been at Kaer Morhen for the last several winters. Ilias had threads of silver in his curly black hair and in his neatly-trimmed short beard. He wasn't one of the ones sparring; he sat back against one of the tables just watching, his eyes following the fight the way Vesemir watched a sparring practice. 

Geralt was mostly watching the sparring too, from where he leaned against the outside of one of the tables lined up to mark off the fighting ring from the rest of the hall. He'd finally started to be able to _see_ fast enough to follow fights between the grown witchers, so that it wasn't all just a hypnotizing blur that he couldn't learn anything from. Still, now and then he stole looks at Ilias--and if that happened to be the same time that he stretched out his back, or bit his lip, well, he couldn't stand perfectly still all the time.

He never caught Ilias looking back, but when the informal-but-still-ferocious competition was down to the last four men standing, he felt a presence at his side, and then fingers winding casually into his hair at the nape of his neck.

Geralt felt himself flush hot, but he kept his eyes on the men sparring.

"Little white wolf pup," Ilias said, his voice low and warm, amused. "Geralt. I've heard a few things about you."

The tone of his voice--and the nearness of him, and his hand in Geralt's hair--made it very clear what Ilias had heard, but Geralt kept still, kept his eyes straight ahead, and said, "Oh? What kind of things?"

He'd never thought about that--that as much as the boys in training swapped stories about the witchers they'd gone to bed with, so all the others would know what to expect, the witchers out on the Path might do the same. _The rooms are as drafty as ever and it's still porridge every morning, but there's this kid who'll give you a pretty good time..._

Still in that amiable, knowing voice, Ilias said, "Well, you're the current favorite in the betting on which one out of your litter will be the last to die."

That brought Geralt sharply back to himself. It didn't surprise him that that was a thing older witchers betted on, not really, but he couldn't help saying, "Eskel--"

"Your friend? He's in second place. Quick with signs, from what I hear; that'll stand him in good stead."

Geralt shook his head slightly, not dislodging Ilias' fingers but not letting it pass. "He's a better bet--you should put your silver on him. He's more likely to stop and think first."

"Hm," Ilias said, and then let go of Geralt's hair to curl his hand around the nape of Geralt's neck. "Prefer to rush in, do you?"

Geralt shrugged. "I'm trying to learn to think ahead." Ilias squeezed a little, maybe hearing that Geralt had more to say and encouraging him to go on. Geralt tried not to smile too widely. "I was thinking I'd go to bed with whoever won the sparring matches tonight, for instance."

"Is _that_ what you were thinking," Ilias murmured, and then Geralt felt Ilias' attention shift away from him. Geralt made himself focus too, watching a flurry of blows and parries that he couldn't quite grasp--but it ended with Petr on the flagstones and Slava standing over him, sword extended to his throat. 

They both laughed and Petr slapped the floor, admitting defeat. Slava took the sword away and offered Petr his hand, and they moved off to let the next pair have the floor. 

"And who do you think you'll be going to bed with, then?" Ilias asked, his fingers flexing lightly on Geralt's nape.

Geralt wanted to say Slava, for loyalty, and didn't want to mention Afon at all, for the old stubborn bitterness that he knew was petty and childish by now but still couldn't forget. But he knew that his answer mattered, and he wanted to get it right--and not only because he knew which bed he wanted to be in tonight.

"Slava's fastest," Geralt said. "Afon has the reach. But Marek's going to take the night." 

Ilias made an inquiring noise, but not a discouraging one. Marek hadn't been defeated yet, but he hadn't done much to make the others cheer or beat their sword hilts on their armor. 

"No wasted motion," Geralt said. "He's got the best vision, sees where his opponent will be before he gets there. That's why he'll win."

"And that's why I should bet on your friend instead of you, hm," Ilias said.

Geralt shrugged, and waited. It would be tactless to make any other analogy, and he'd been obvious enough for one night.

Ilias huffed a low laugh. "And what happens when the actual best goes into the ring, hm?"

"Oh," Geralt said. "Well. I don't know, but I'd like to see it."

"I'm sure you would, pup." 

Ilias took his hand away but stayed beside Geralt, leaning against the table and watching while the witchers in the ring worked through their successive elimination matches. They didn't speak any more, but Ilias would occasionally jerk his chin toward a certain spot, or make an approving noise, and Geralt did his best to mark what Ilias had seen. He caught a few moves he hadn't spotted before, with those pointers to guide him, and felt warm inside to have earned the teaching.

Geralt was proven right; Marek was the last man standing.

And then Ilias straightened up and vaulted over the table, drawing his steel sword in the same motion. A round of whoops went up from everyone who'd already been beaten, and Marek grinned gamely and squared up without a word exchanged.

Geralt had thought Marek wasted no motion, but Ilias seemed to be on some other plane, where Marek couldn't touch him and couldn't block him. The fight wasn't short, though Geralt thought it could have been, if Ilias cared to make it so. 

He was showing off a little, instead. For Geralt.

Geralt didn't bother trying not to smile too wide, but he watched carefully, too, trying to absorb whatever Ilias would teach him this way. 

When it did end, it was in a flash of motion that Geralt couldn't follow at all; suddenly Marek's sword was in Ilias' left hand, his own sword in his right resting gently against the back of Marek's neck. Marek smiled ruefully and raised his hands in surrender, and Ilias tapped him with the flat of his blade and handed Marek's back with a flourish.

He turned to face Geralt again, and gave just the barest twitch of an eyebrow as he walked back to the table, sheathing his sword as he came. He vaulted the table as easily as he had the first time, and didn't pause on the other side.

Geralt fell into step behind him. He'd been won fair and square, after all.

Ilias led him up to the familiar corridor of rooms where visiting witchers stayed, into a room Geralt had been in plenty of times before--but it looked like somewhere else entirely. Witchers' rooms were usually spare and utilitarian, furnished with the basics plus the witcher's own gear and armor spread around for mending and cleaning and whatever other work needed to be done during the witcher's time at Kaer Morhen.

Geralt couldn't even make sense of Ilias' room for a long moment after he stepped inside; it was so crowded with _things_ that he couldn't grasp what half of them were. Finally he realized that there were half a dozen chests taking up much of the available floor space, and all the floor space that remained was covered with rugs and furs. Other things--pillows and... some kind of really fancy blankets?--were piled up on the bed and on top of a couple of chests, and he could see one long chest standing open that looked to be entirely filled with weapons, another filled with dozens of small glass bottles.

"I know you didn't arrive with a pack train," Geralt said, looking back and forth from Ilias to... everything.

Ilias laughed, running a hand through his curly hair. "No, not so much as a second mount this year. Most of this is a long accumulation--I've been stashing things at Kaer Morhen for... fifty, sixty years? A number of us do. Can't be stolen, always waiting where you can find it if you need it, and when we get around to dying, it makes it easy to bequeath what we had to the School."

Geralt nodded slowly. "Did you, uh... need to find something?"

Ilias snorted, and walked over to one of the chests only to shut the lid and sit on it, facing toward Geralt. "I wanted to find myself a warm room for the winter, yes."

He moved to bend and pull his boot off, and Geralt stepped up, dropping to his knees on the furs to do it for him. 

Ilias raised an eyebrow, but smiled down at Geralt and went on as Geralt attended to his boots. "All of this is because I've also taken too long about dying and passing on my goods; the quartermaster is after me to cut down on the amount of space I'm taking up in the vaults. I'll just have to spend this winter disposing of some of the pile--pass out the inheritance while I'm still alive to do all the work myself." 

"Oh," Geralt said, tugging Ilias' second boot off. As he set it aside, he very carefully did not turn his head to look toward that gleaming pile of swords. 

Ilias laughed again, amused but not unkind. "Ah, you've started assembling your own gear, haven't you? Got one of those little cells up under the battlements?"

Geralt bit his lip and nodded. He and Eskel had, just a couple of months earlier, graduated to having their own rooms, each just big enough for a narrow bed and a rack for weapons and armor and packs. They would spend the next few years assembling the gear they would take out on the Path with them, for the Trial of the Mountains and beyond. They would all be furnished with swords, of course, but Geralt had a feeling that Ilias' stash far outstripped what would be dug up out of the armory for newly-minted witchers.

¬"You'll have first pick, little wolf, don't worry about that," Ilias said, scrubbing his fingertips through Geralt's hair in a way that Geralt thought must be like the way he would pet a dog--or a wolf, if he'd found a young one and tamed it.

Geralt smiled up at him, showing all his teeth, and Ilias snorted. "Not worried about me making you earn it, then?"

"No," Geralt said, letting his absolute certainty show. "I know I will."

Ilias' hand flattened against the crown of Geralt's head, his fingers all tangled in Geralt's hair. He was still smiling, but his eyebrows twitched up a little--waiting for Geralt to show him what he could do.

Geralt held Ilias' gaze while he undid Ilias' trousers with one hand, cupping the bulge of his cock through them with the other. It wasn't going to be an uphill job, at least; Ilias was already half-hard before Geralt touched him, and his cock twitched at the friction even if Ilias held perfectly still otherwise. Geralt didn't look down until he had it in his hand, heavy and firm and hot, hardening under his touch.

He didn't think of how it would look before he licked his lips, but Ilias made a little cut-off sound, making Geralt smile. Ilias had a good cock, the head dark with blood as it stiffened, satisfyingly thick but not so big it would take a lot of maneuvering to do anything with it. 

Geralt hummed happily and curled his hand around the base of it, giving a short squeezing stroke as he started off with little teasing licks. Ilias made a pleased sound above him, his knees tightening around Geralt's body with a quick, encouraging touch. When that contact vanished, Geralt wriggled with the eager energy running down his spine, then settled to his work. 

He let out another, lower, noise as his mouth was filled; he knew how to relax so that it was easy to take and it felt so good, the slide of cock through his lips, the press of it on his tongue. He went slow, not wanting to seem as if he were rushing through it for the prize at the end. He drew back and went down again, and again, easing lower each time, listening for the little hitches in Ilias' breath, feeling every twitch of his cock where it was cradled in his mouth. Geralt was drooling a little and he didn't care; it just dripped down over his steadying hand, made everything nice and slick.

He went lower, lower, slowly and steadily--he was showing off now. Sometimes he had to be careful, to angle himself just so and consciously remember the trick of it, but it was easy tonight to let Ilias' cock press past the back of his mouth and into his throat. He swallowed around it, got to hear Ilias groan, a deep, rough sound, and Ilias' fingers wound tight into his hair but still didn't pull. 

Geralt kept moving, remembering to breathe every so often before taking him deep again. He let himself get lost, to forget everything but this, giving pleasure and feeling it, too; as he sank into the rhythm of it, his hips rocked in the same rhythm. He was still fully clothed, but he was hard and couldn't help the instinctive motion. 

He didn't need more than that, not while he was doing this. He never wanted to stop; every second seemed to stretch into an endless time. He'd always been here and always would be, sucking cock with a gentle hand in his hair, grinding against nothing as the cock he was sucking finally began to thrust a little too, control slipping as the pleasure built up between them.

He didn't recognize the feeling of his hair being tugged on until it sharpened into a pull, drawing him off of Ilias' cock. The air tasted cold and sweet as he gasped, and he realized he'd gone a little too long, that time, without coming up to breathe. But he was achingly hard, so close to coming, and Ilias had been getting close too.

Geralt meant to say something about that, about wanting to finish, but what came out of his mouth was just a whine.

"Oh, you'll get what you're asking for, pup," Ilias murmured. "Deep breath, first."

Geralt inhaled obediently, deep like he was about to dive into the lake, but keeping his mouth wide open. Ilias pushed him back down, not roughly but irresistibly. He didn't stop until Geralt was all the way down, and Geralt swallowed and swallowed and swallowed around him before Ilias pulled him up a little and pushed him back down. 

He sank into it, not even thinking to rub himself off. He'd never had his mouth fucked like this. Ilias wasn't out of control for a second, just took exactly what he wanted without using any more force than he had to. Geralt didn't have to think, didn't even have to breathe, just swallowed and worked his tongue as best he could, his mind gone blank and dark. His lips tingled, his whole body distant except his mouth and throat and the cock pushing into him as he felt Ilias starting to come.

What followed was a confused explosion of sensations: cold air and the tightness of his lungs as he finally gasped in a breath, wetness on his cheek and throat and hands on him, cradling his jaw, gripping his hair. And over it all, a burst of pleasure that rushed through his whole body before it caught him by the balls, bringing him to the brink of coming without being touched at all.

Geralt's eyes were watering--from staring into the fire, or from the sheer shock of that moment, something more than coming when he somehow still hadn't come--as Ilias' hands guided his head around to face forward again. 

He'd forced Geralt's head to the side, Geralt realized. When he pulled out so Geralt could breathe, he'd made sure he wouldn't come in Geralt's mouth and give him something to choke on. Geralt stared up at Ilias, letting the water stream from his eyes, mouth open as he panted, his body slowly easing down from blinding crisis into just really, really wanting Ilias to touch him somewhere other than his cheek and his hair.

Ilias seemed to see that, after a moment, as Geralt's breathing settled and his eyes mostly stopped leaking. Ilias' hands moved to Geralt's arms--at his sides, he hadn't even thought to touch himself--and tugged him up to sit on Ilias' thigh, leaning against his chest. Ilias kissed him, feather-lightly at first, as if he thought Geralt might still need breath more than he wanted Ilias' mouth.

Geralt made a hungry little sound, grateful that he didn't have to try to say anything in words, and twisted further into the kiss. Ilias seemed to know what he meant, and his tongue pushed into Geralt's mouth just like his cock had--not roughly, but not giving Geralt room to push back, either. Geralt found himself relaxing into it, just as he had before, letting his mind go blank and his body go slack.

Then the vague unsatisfying touch he'd been half-aware of resolved into Ilias getting Geralt's pants open. Ilias gave him a quick, tight stroke, and then no part of Geralt was soft at all. He made a desperate noise against Ilias' lips.

Ilias pulled away from the kiss but kept his hand on Geralt's cock, and Geralt kept his eyes shut as he let his wordless wanting pour out of his mouth in sharp little cries. Ilias' lips brushed over his, and then Ilias bit down on Geralt's lower lip, and Geralt moaned right into his mouth as he came all over Ilias' hand.

He drifted for a while after that. He was resting against Ilias' chest again, and he felt Ilias clean him up, his crotch and his face both, but Ilias didn't say anything, didn't make him move or do anything. Eventually Geralt realized that, sitting on Ilias' lap like this, he was facing toward the trunk with the swords in it; metal gleamed in the light from the fire. 

Ilias had promised him first pick, to add to his gear. 

He opened his eyes a little wider, trying to see without being obvious, since Ilias was still holding him close. The excitement of it cut through the drowsy stillness after coming, but he wasn't a child. He could wait. 

He could. 

Ilias laughed abruptly in his ear, like letting go a held breath, and he said, "No need to worry about you being up for a second round, is there? Five minutes being still and then you're wound up like a spring again."

Geralt sat up straight when Ilias loosened his grip. He ought to move, probably--he was smaller than Ilias, but he still had to be heavy--but there was something pleasant in the novelty of sitting on someone's knee, being pressed together this way while more or less fully clothed. And Ilias didn't push him away, just looked at him with that warmly amused smile. 

"Get your clothes off for me, would you, little wolf? I meant to see more of you before we got this far." 

Geralt obeyed with alacrity, peeling out of his shirt and then bending over to pull his boots off while he was still perched on Ilias' thigh. Ilias ran a hand down his spine while he was bent over--not starting anything, just touching to touch the way some men did, especially between the first round and the second. Geralt looked back over his shoulder when he had his boots off, to see if Ilias wanted him to linger, but he took his hand away and sat back like he was settling in to watch. 

Geralt got up and got out of his trousers. Ilias didn't reach for him or give him any further instruction, so Geralt picked up his clothes and boots and set them neatly aside on one of the closed chests. 

"Go on, then," Ilias said, when Geralt straightened up from that, and Geralt turned to look at him; the tone of his voice had been warm and a little suggestive, but he needed slightly more to know what Ilias wanted him to get on with, exactly.

Ilias nodded toward the open trunk that held the swords, only a stride away from where Geralt stood. 

Geralt looked down at himself, at his clothes, at the blades, and back to Ilias. It probably shouldn't have been confusing, but swords and sex were usually very separate parts of his day, or night, and he felt lost.

Ilias snorted and stood, coming over to sling his arm around Geralt's shoulders and bodily turning him toward the weapons trunk. "If you can't handle a sword while you're naked you shouldn't be handling any of these with your clothes on, either," Ilias said cheerfully. "And you never know what'll pull you from your bedroll in a hurry; if it comes down to grabbing your sword or your trousers, you'll want your sword."

That sounded reasonable enough, although the way Ilias dropped his arm from Geralt's shoulders to squeeze the cheek of his ass suggested that this was also the show Ilias wanted to see. Well, and if it was Geralt wouldn't argue with that; he'd come up here to give Ilias whatever kind of pleasure he wanted out of the night. This was a simple enough request.

Ilias patted him on the hip, a firm and almost dismissive touch, so Geralt took it as a cue to remain standing where he was, looking down at the trunk, while Ilias crouched beside it. It held at least half a dozen swords, some scabbarded, others just wrapped in leather to protect the blades. There were daggers, too, of every kind, bristling hilt-up like a bouquet.

Ilias moved two swords aside and pulled out a third, wrapped in a battered leather-wrapped scabbard. He drew it as he straightened up to face Geralt, and Geralt held himself utterly still until Ilias shook his head slightly and leaned in to kiss Geralt's forehead, the blade held between them as if the shining steel was no more concern than Ilias' hand or arm. It was, of course; a witcher like Ilias would as easily mishandle a sword as lose control of his own limbs. 

Still, Geralt didn't move a muscle in the presence of that naked steel until Ilias said, "Arms out, little wolf. Let's see just how big a wolf you're going to be."

That was simpler, and Geralt reported, "Vesemir says another inch and a half before the Trial of the Mountains."

Ilias pressed the hilt of the sword to Geralt's chest, the pommel pressed into the notch between his collar bones, the flat of the blade against the inside of his right arm as he held it out. The point extended a few inches beyond his fingertips. Ilias nodded with a satisfied look and sheathed the sword again, turning back to the chest to pull out another.

This one had the angled crossguard that usually meant a silver sword, and the leather of the scabbard had been dyed blue. It showed some wear, but it either hadn't been heavily used or had been carefully repaired. Ilias turned the hilt toward him, and Geralt tried not to snatch it greedily. He took a half step back as he drew it from the scabbard, and for a moment he couldn't look at anything but the sword.

It wasn't beautiful the way swords in stories were beautiful. It didn't glow or sing, wasn't ornamented with fancy metalwork or jewels on the hilt. It just looked exactly the way a silver sword _should_ look, somehow, as if every other silver sword he'd ever seen had been a variation from this one. It felt right in his grip--a little long for him, but he knew, from a lifetime of growing into and out of a succession of swords, that it would be perfect for him a year or two from now, when it really counted.

Geralt tore his gaze from it just long enough to look for Ilias. He had stepped back, leaning against the wall by the hearth, still holding the blue scabbard and leaving what room there was for Geralt and the sword. Geralt took that for permission, and raised the sword to check how much clearance he had--but of course anywhere witchers regularly stayed, there was room overhead to draw a sword off his back.

He did that first, making the motion of sheathing the sword and drawing it, tapping the flat against his bare back before he brought it up again. Then he got both hands on the hilt and started moving through the drill positions, transitioning from inside to outside and high to low, switching his leading hand from left to right, then experimenting with one-handed lunges. By then he was tossing the sword from hand to hand as if it were a dagger; it knew his hand, and his hand knew the weight of the sword. 

He straightened up, bringing the sword to low rest, and grinned at Ilias. He could feel how wide and foolish his smile was, but he couldn't hold it back. Ilias stepped forward, holding the scabbard out, and Geralt sheathed the sword smoothly, feeling only a little pang of loss at letting it out of his hand. 

"Looks like you have yourself a proper silver sword," Ilias murmured, taking another step in and catching Geralt by the back of the neck. "Shall we celebrate your good luck?"

Geralt pushed in for a kiss, and that seemed like enough of an answer; Ilias drew him down onto the furs in front of the hearth, where Geralt lay the sheathed sword down.

A long time later--after they'd thoroughly celebrated Geralt's good luck and put a modest dent in Ilias' supplies of drinks and slippery salve--Geralt dozed off on the furs, between the warmth of the fire and the warmth of Ilias, with his hand resting on the blue scabbard.

* * *

Ilias woke him in plenty of time to take his prize back to his room before breakfast. He sent Geralt off with the silver sword, a small sack of what he called "useful odds and ends," and a freshly-salved tally mark on his right shoulder. 

Geralt took the quickest way to the tower where his and Eskel's rooms were, which meant a short dash across an outside battlement in the frigid air of not-quite-dawn. He went fast enough that the fog of his breath couldn't keep up with him and flung himself through the door so abruptly that he nearly collided with Eskel, who had been walking down the stairs.

Eskel caught him by the arms to steady him, and looked him up and down with that pointedly unsurprised expression he almost always had on his face lately. But his hands stayed on Geralt's arms, so Geralt knew what he was thinking. Eskel he might not be surprised, but he still wanted to know what Geralt had been up to. That was fine; he didn't need to surprise Eskel.

"Ilias," Geralt explained. "Bet he'd give you stuff, too. And the fucking was--" Geralt tried to gesture and just wound up waving all the stuff in his hands. Eskel took an exaggerated step back, even though Geralt wouldn't have hit him any more than he'd hit himself. Eskel dropped one hand from Geralt's arm, using the other to tug Geralt back up the stairs he'd been coming down.

"So I should bat my eyelashes at him on Sunday night, huh," Eskel said, flatly, like it was a ridiculous idea that Ilias would want him, and want to give him just as much as he'd given Geralt, in all respects.

"You might not have to, I told him about you," Geralt said with a shrug, and Eskel looked over at him, raising his eyebrows and saying nothing. Geralt rolled his eyes--Eskel's whole thing for being _imperturbable_ was fine for other people, but Geralt hated when Eskel insisted on keeping it up with him.

"He said he'd heard about me," Geralt explained with a shrug, his right shoulder itching noticeably as the new scar finished filling in. "I guess I kind of... have a reputation, with the grown witchers."

Eskel snorted at that, and then started laughing out loud, and that was rare enough that Geralt didn't even bother pretending to be offended and just laughed along. It _was_ ridiculous, the idea that they talked about him, out there on the Path. And, all right, it was also a little ridiculous that he was determined to get a tally mark from every one of them, but that was a fun sort of ridiculous, like a prank. He liked having sex, so why not try to win at having the most sex?

When they'd reached the top of the stairs, Eskel caught his breath enough to say, "So, what, they've all heard that if you're busy some night, they can probably find me somewhere nearby?"

Geralt huffed. He knew perfectly well that Eskel didn't chase the grown witchers' attention the way he did; his fingers knew every one of the tally marks on Eskel's right shoulder. He knew that there were only nine of them. Eskel could've had more if he wanted them, and he didn't.

"No, he said--sort of joking, but not really--that what he'd heard about me was that I'm the favorite in betting on which of our group will die last. I told him he ought to bet on you. So he'll probably be curious to see you for himself."

Eskel said nothing to that, just stepped ahead to open the door to Geralt's room for him. There was barely room for Eskel to stand between the open door and the foot of the bed, but Eskel did stand there, instead of throwing himself down on the bed or otherwise making himself comfortable. It was Geralt's bed, not Eskel's, in a way that neither of the beds they'd slept in back in the dormitory had ever belonged only to either of them. Geralt wasn't even sure by now whose bed had been whose, officially.

It wasn't that they'd stopped sharing blankets, since they got their own rooms. They still did--for sleeping and sex both--but it wasn't easy like it had been when they had neighboring beds in the dormitory. There were closed doors between them now, and one of them had to move into the other's own private space if they wanted to share. They had to agree that it would happen on this night or that. Neither of them ever said no if the other suggested it or just turned up, but... it still meant that one of them had to suggest it, or make the first move.

It was easier during the day; they were together practically all the time, everywhere else in the keep. There was nothing to separate them when they were two boys in the same cohort, doing the same training.

Geralt dropped the sword and sack on his bed to deal with later, and caught Eskel by the arm to tug him back through the door as if he wouldn't have followed on his own. "Come on, breakfast."

"Yeah, I know. I'd be eating already if it weren't for you," Eskel pointed out, knocking their shoulders together. Geralt leaned into it for a few steps, until Eskel shoved him away and took off running.

There was nothing Geralt could do but chase him.


	5. Chapter 5

On the one hand, it wasn't for Geralt to ask. He was still in training, and it was the witchers stopping from the Path at Kaer Morhen who were supposed to choose one of them. It was up to them whether to have company at all.

On the other hand, Jens was the only active Wolf School witcher Geralt knew of who hadn't given him a tally mark, and Geralt only had months left before the Trial of the Mountains, and _he wanted Jens to fuck him_.

Jens, a red-haired witcher somewhere between thirty and forty years of age, hadn't come for a winter since Geralt was fourteen. He'd shown up early this spring, not long after the rest of the witchers cleared out. Geralt had thought he would have to give up on Jens for lack of chances, but he had a chance now, if he could make it happen. 

He'd done his best to demonstrate his interest and availability, the first two nights Jens was at the keep. Jens hadn't seemed annoyed, but hadn't chosen Geralt, or anyone else, to keep him company. And now he'd said he meant to leave in the morning and had gone up to his room alone after dinner on the third night. There wasn't going to be another chance. 

Geralt wasn't supposed to go looking for this, but he was standing outside Jens's door anyway.

He shouldn't have come. He'd walked twice around the battlements telling himself that it was stupid to care, that it was only a game he'd been playing, competing with no one, that it didn't mean anything if he never got that last tally mark. And then he'd slipped in through the door from the battlements to the corridor where the witchers' rooms were, where only Jens was sleeping tonight. He had gotten as far as Jens's door and now he was listening for any sound from inside. If Jens was already asleep...

The door opened, and Jens, fully clothed but for his boots and clearly wide awake, gave him a wry smile. "You might as well come in, then, Geralt."

Geralt ducked his head and obeyed, stepping quickly past Jens and into the room. Jens had packed his gear already for leaving in the morning; the only sign that the room would be occupied tonight was the linens on the bed. The spring night was mild enough that he hadn't even lit a fire.

Geralt turned to face him as Jens shut the door and came back into the room. He looked Geralt up and down, then sighed, still looking a little amused. "You want your cut, do you? I'll give you one, if it's so important to you, and you can stay the night if you need to make it look right; you can use my bedroll."

It was Geralt's turn to look Jens up and down, biting his lip on the question he didn't know how to ask. _Why don't you want me? Why did you let me in just to say no?_

He shook his head a little. "The mark doesn't mean anything if I didn't earn it."

"Huh," Jens looked thoughtful. "And since I'm not going to fuck you, what do you think it would mean to earn it?"

It sounded like a testing question, like there were right and wrong answers. Geralt wanted very much to get this right--because Jens hadn't said he _couldn't_ earn it, only asked him how he meant to do it.

Geralt bit his lip and looked away from the witcher, thinking, and Jens took a step back and sat down on the bed, pointedly giving him time and space to consider it. Geralt checked to see if it was a hint, but of course it wasn't going to be that easy--Jens kept his knees close together, with no inviting space for Geralt between them.

So not fucking, and not sex at all. What _did_ the tally marks mean, other than sex? It was more than just keeping count, showing off that he'd gone to bed with so many witchers. He could know that without tally marks. 

"Partly," Geralt said slowly, "it's that you choose to give it to me, to show I've passed this trial. It's a way of saying you believe I ought to be a witcher in my turn, when the time comes."

Jens tilted his head and nodded. "I can see that. And I'm ready to say that now; you came and found me and asked for it, and I know that that took more than just walking here. You see a thing through, even if you're the only one who thinks it matters."

Geralt nodded slowly.

"But it's also..." Geralt struggled for the words. "It means I gave something--did something for you. I was part of what you come back to Kaer Morhen for, what makes this a good place to come to. And in exchange you... you taught me something. I learned something from you."

Geralt thought of the single mark on his left shoulder, for a trial that wasn't the same thing as the others--but it would be obscene to ask Jens to put a mark beside that one, just because this wasn't the same thing either.

"Hm," Jens said. "Well, it's true I wasn't ready to go to sleep yet. So keep me company, and I'll teach you something."

Geralt nodded eagerly, more than willing, and Jens smiled and shook his head, almost fondly. He stood and lit the fire with a casual flick of Igni, and went to pull some things from his pack--a deck of cards and a bottle.

"Every played Gwent, Geralt?" Jens sat down on the floor as he spoke, with the fire at his left side and the bottle set down at his knee, so Geralt sat down facing him.

"Sort of," Geralt said. 

There was a hoard of stray battered cards that was held in common by all the witchers in training--many of the cards were old enough that they had probably been in that hidey-hole when Jens was in training. They had added in their own inventions on carefully trimmed slips of scrounged parchment, whenever someone had a good idea for one; some of _those_ might have been more than twenty years old, for all Geralt knew.

But he'd never played a proper game, with someone who used proper cards all the time.

"Well, we can't send you out on the Path not sure whether you know how to play Gwent," Jens said, shuffling the stack and then splitting it in half. He held the two halves out on his two palms, offering Geralt his choice, and Geralt took the stack from Jens's left hand.

"Is that part of learning to play Gwent?" Geralt asked, nodding toward the bottle as he drew cards for the first round. 

"Oh, yes, a very important part," Jens said with a little smile. "Gwent is often played where strong drink is served, and a night spent playing Gwent always involves having another drink with every game, so we'll do that too. Give you the whole experience."

Geralt smiled cautiously and Jens added, "You play first, let's see what you've got."

Geralt squinted at the cards, studying them, trying to quickly judge their best uses, and laid down a card.

"Ahh," Jens said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. "Yes, it's a good thing you came to see me tonight, young wolf. I have a lot to teach you."

* * *

They'd opened a second bottle and Geralt was staring at his cards, trying to keep his mind on the strategies Jens was teaching him, when the question burst out of his mouth without him deciding to ask. "_Why_, though?"

"Why shouldn't you try to counter my army with one archer?" Jens asked, but there was something in his loose, tolerant expression that said he knew what Geralt meant, and wasn't angry with him for asking.

"_Why_ are we playing Gwent instead of you fucking me?" Geralt persisted. "Is it--do you--women? Do you only like women?"

Some witchers were that way, though they generally relented halfway through the winter even so. But Jens wasn't here for a whole winter, only tonight, and he clearly didn't plan on relenting.

"I don't fuck women, either," Jens said, rearranging the cards in his hand. "For the same reason I'm not fucking you tonight. I don't want to, and I don't have to."

Geralt was a little stung by that somehow, though he knew he shouldn't be. It was childish to be hurt by someone saying _I don't want you_, especially when Geralt only wanted him because he was the only one Geralt hadn't managed to get, and nevermind the way he'd begun to watch Jens's hands in the firelight, and the little freckles on his cheeks and nose, the movement of his throat when he swallowed and his lips when he licked them. It wasn't about what Geralt wanted. 

It was about what Jens wanted--who he wanted. "Who _do_ you want to, then?"

"I don't," Jens said again, still looking down intently at his cards, though he had to have them all memorized and he wasn't nearly as wobbly as Geralt was, having more tolerance for the stuff they were drinking. "I don't like fucking. I don't like touching, or being touched."

Geralt tried to make sense of that. He understood all the words, he thought, but something wasn't connecting up and he didn't think it was only because of how much he'd drunk. He could still read and play Gwent; he wasn't that far gone. "You... you don't like... sex?"

Jens shrugged, and studied Geralt for a moment with narrowed eyes. Geralt realized abruptly that this was a kind of secret, and a kind of vulnerability, that he was asking Jens to reveal to him just because he turned up and asked for it. He didn't have any right to know.

Jens looked away, his posture loosening. "I don't like any kind of touching--skin-to-skin, mostly. I can manage being in a crowd, brushing up against someone, though it's not my favorite thing." 

He glanced up at Geralt, and clearly saw that Geralt was still baffled by the whole idea of it. Jens sighed and said, in a patiently explaining tone, as if this were a lesson he'd given more than once, "It's like--some witchers, their hearing becomes so acute after the trials, they have to learn to ignore most of what they hear, or stuff their ears with wax when they're going to be somewhere noisy. My whole skin is like that, and it's most sensitive to other people's skin."

"Was it the trials? Is that why?" Geralt remembered having to get used to his new sight and hearing; on a very sunny day shortly after they'd begun to recover from the Trial of the Grasses, there had been some mishap in the forge resulting in a couple of small explosions and a thumping and clattering that had seemed to go on forever. His entire cohort had ended up back in bed with sick headaches from their too-acute senses, a pain that had gone on and on with nothing to do but wait it out. 

"Does it hurt?" Geralt blurted, trying to imagine what it would be like if the touch of someone's hand could make him feel like he had that day. 

Jens smiled a little. "Not exactly, most of the time. It's just too much to be enjoyable. The trials made it a lot worse, but I was always like that a little, as long as I can remember."

"So you just... No one? Ever? Not even..." Geralt thought of the cloud of touch he moved through every day. Not only his and Eskel's mostly-easy closeness; he knocked shoulders and pressed close and pushed and shoved with everyone in his cohort, and Vesemir or Corbin wouldn't hesitate to physically move him when he was doing something wrong with sword or signs, and... and people just _touched_ each other. How could they not?

"You'd be surprised how much it doesn't come up, out there," Jens said with a shrug. "The people out there, the ordinary people--even before they know you're a witcher, what they see is a man in fighting gear with two swords on his back. They give us plenty of room in the street, and whores don't touch unless you pay them to, and some won't even take coin from a witcher. So it's easy not to be touched, except when I come back here. And even here, just about everyone has learned to let me sidestep."

Geralt stared at him, blinking rapidly. There was a stinging in his eyes now, and a weight in his chest, as he imagined that. He would face the Trial of the Mountains before too much longer, and so would Eskel, and then they would each go out on the Path alone, like every witcher did. They wouldn't come back to Kaer Morhen the first winter, or the second, or maybe more than that; young witchers didn't, when they were first starting out. There were so many places to find work--and all of them would be full of people who would never touch him.

"Oh, now, it's not so bad, young wolf," Jens leaned closer, and, very deliberately, patted Geralt's knee. Geralt tried to get his expression under control, but he didn't think it worked very well. "Other witchers manage just fine--there are plenty of whores who _will_ take a witcher's money, and folk who are curious or grateful enough to give you a ride for free, especially if you've just solved a problem for them. You'll get along all right."

"But..." Geralt frowned, while Jens took his hand away and grabbed the bottle again, taking another healthy swig as he sat back. "But you... if you don't like people to touch you, do you--do you not like to touch yourself either? Do you not..."

Jens laughed, a little bitterly. "No, I like fucking my own fist just fine. And by the time I was out on the Path it'd been long enough since my trial that I wanted to try again, but I never found a potion--not even the traditional ones," Jens waggled the bottle, "that could make me not mind it enough to be worth bothering."

"Your trial..." Geralt blinked, thinking of Jens as a boy, fourteen or fifteen years old maybe, and some grown witcher looking at him and saying, _You'll do_. "Did _that_ hurt?"

Jens's expression went strangely soft, and Geralt remembered that Jens had been here the winter he was fourteen--the same winter Geralt earned his left-hand mark. Jens would have been staying in one of the rooms along this corridor that night; he was probably one of those who'd poured into Karsten's room to help Olli immobilize him once Eskel had pulled Geralt out.

"Not like that," Jens said. "No one hauled me off by my hair while I screamed and tried to get away. It was before I stood the Trial of the Dreams, and I wasn't quite as sensitive yet, then. And I thought... maybe everyone else was right and I was wrong. Maybe I would like it once I tried it."

"But you didn't," Geralt said, still feeling sick at the thought.

"I didn't," Jens agreed. "I about bit my lip through trying to be brave until he finished, and not spoil it for him; Petr was horrified, after, and salved the bite for me--" Jens tilted his chin forward, and tilted his head just so, to make the firelight fall on his lower lip, and Geralt saw the tiny, jagged scar. "So I got two marks that night to show for it. I don't know if Petr warned everyone else off or if it was just obvious that I wouldn't be any fun, but no one ever tried me again after that."

There was a note in Jens's voice that Geralt couldn't quite identify. He stared down at his cards without seeing them, trying to think of what was still out of place in Jens's explanation, and after a few moments of silence, it struck him.

"You wanted them to be right," Geralt said. "You wanted--after, later, you--"

Jens took a pointed swig from the bottle and held it out, stiff-armed, to Geralt. It was not an offer, but a command. 

Geralt took his own careful sip, and kept his mouth shut when he handed the bottle back. 

Jens corked it and sighed. "Would've been nice, yeah. I mean, people seem to enjoy the experience, and there aren't that many things in life that feel that good, you know? But I can do it for myself. I manage. Some things in life you just can't have."

Geralt worried his lip between his teeth, then saw Jens watching his mouth and stopped sharply. "Isn't it... lonely, though?"

Jens closed his eyes and pressed his knuckles to his forehead, between his eyebrows, as if trying to push something back. "Yeah, pup. It's lonely sometimes. That's life."

Geralt wanted to reach for him, soothe him, _fix it_, so badly he could hardly breathe, and the knowledge that anything he did would only make it worse made him ache like a fever.

But there had to be a way. This was a problem and there had to be a solution. This was just another trial, another test. There had to be a way to give Jens _something_, so that he could go away a little less lonely. It was like when Jens first asked him what it would mean to earn a tally mark--what would it mean not to be alone, even if you didn't touch?

Geralt had spent more time alone, this past year or so, than he had in his entire life before that; he had his own little room, a privilege for the last stretch before he faced the Trial of the Mountains. It was just next door to Eskel's room, but the stone wall between them seemed like a thousand miles sometimes, compared to when they had shared a dormitory room, them and the rest of their cohort. Back then, even if they happened to stay in their own beds for an entire night, there was still the sound of the others breathing, whispering, snoring...

Geralt sat up sharply. "Jens," he said. "What if--what if you didn't touch me, and I didn't touch you, but--but we did the rest of it."

Jens lowered his hand and stared at Geralt, looking awfully weary now. It was probably late; they had played a lot of rounds of Gwent, and it had been dark already when Geralt came to his door. "The rest of what, young wolf?"

That was better, at least. Jens hadn't kept him demoted to _pup_ for too long. He wasn't angry. Just tired.

"Fucking," Geralt said. "Or whatever. Didn't you ever--when you were in the dormitory with the others in your cohort, weren't there times when you'd hear someone going at it under the covers, and then another one would start, and then..."

Jens let out a breath that was almost, almost a laugh, and rubbed at his mouth like he wasn't sure where the sound had come from. "Yeah, I--yeah. I'd forgotten that, almost. After Petr I wouldn't, I'd cover my ears, because it felt too much like the same thing, but... yeah. Before then, that was... That was all right. And not so lonely, you're right."

"I could do that for you, with you," Geralt insisted. "I won't hide under the covers, and if--if you want me to do anything, if you want to see, I'll do anything you want. And I won't touch, I won't even look if you don't want me to, I'll--"

Geralt fell silent when Jens looked at him, really looked at him, steady and intent. His gaze was unwavering for a long moment before he said, "Up on the bed, then, young wolf. Unless you need another shot for courage?" He waggled the bottle in offer.

Geralt shook his head, though he _did_ want another shot for courage. He was starting to feel not nearly drunk enough, but still a little wobbly and slow, aware that he wasn't perfectly in control of himself. He'd never done anything like this for someone to just _watch_.

Well, there was a first time for everything. Jens was teaching him a new way to please someone, even without touching him; once Geralt did this he would have earned his mark for real. And Jens might not feel so lonely.

He got up--without stumbling, if with a little more effort than usual--and took the few strides over to the witcher's bed. He hesitated, facing it, and looked over his shoulder at Jens. "Clothes?"

"Off," Jens said decisively. "Since you mention it."

Geralt nodded agreement and sat on the edge of the bed to get out of his boots and socks and peel off his shirt. He didn't look in Jens's direction again until he stood to drop his pants, and by then Jens had moved, though not far. He was sitting beside the hearth, with his back to the wall, so that none of the light of the fire really fell on him--and Geralt had to look into the glare of the flames to look at him. So that mostly answered the question of whether Jens wanted Geralt to look. 

He sat down on the edge of the bed, sliding across it until he had his back against the wall, mirroring the way Jens sat by the hearth. The next step should have been obvious, and Geralt was already spreading his thighs, reaching for his cock, when he realized he wasn't hard--not even close.

He curled his hand around his cock anyway, and just stared at it, with that foggy-brained feeling of being half-asleep or half-drunk. He knew that this was a problem he could solve, if he could just think of what to do, but he was frozen, stuck staring down at himself.

"Not that, yet," Jens said. "Scoot up a bit, let me see you properly."

Geralt shut his eyes and put both hands down on the bed to shift himself closer to the edge. 

"That's good," Jens said. "Keep your eyes closed for me, young wolf. I want you to touch yourself, but not there. Not yet. I want to see where you like to be touched when it's just touching, not sex."

Geralt made a little noise in his throat, though he wasn't sure himself what it meant. But he could do that, he thought. For a few seconds his mind was blank, and then he put his right hand to the back of his neck, slipping under the fall of his hair to squeeze at the nape. 

"Mm-hm," Jens said, sounding warm and approving. "What else?"

Geralt slid his hand to the side of his throat, then raised it to rest on the crown of his head, a touch he remembered from when he was small, when a man's hand would fall there naturally when he wished to show he was pleased with a little boy who'd been helpful or clever or obedient.

Jens let out a little sigh, and Geralt wondered if he was remembering something similar. Had he been a little one under Master Herrick's care, rewarded occasionally with that touch? 

Geralt didn't ask, and didn't linger over the wondering. He moved his hand to his own shoulder and squeezed--the gesture which had replaced that gentle hand on the top of his head as he grew taller. Then he slid his hand down to his arm and squeezed at the bicep, where Eskel would grab him if he was about to trip on a tree root or step into a trap laid on the course they were running. 

He shifted his hand down to his wrist and rubbed his hands over each other, lacing his fingers and squeezing. It seemed natural, from there, to wrap both arms around his middle and hug himself as best he could. After a couple of breaths he made himself let go, and settled his hands on his knees, where Jens had so carefully and deliberately touched him, and squeezed there too. 

"Mm," Jens said, still sounding like Geralt was doing this right. "Eyes still closed, young wolf? Then touch yourself where you might like someone to touch you if you were going to fuck nice and slow, taking your time about it."

Geralt had some experience of that. Some of the witchers who'd left their marks on him had done it that way, and there had been a few times lately when he and Eskel had wound up in bed together after several nights when they didn't, and they'd taken their time about it, touching everywhere, as they had to learn the terrain all over again after their long absences. 

Geralt ran both hands up the insides of his thighs, stroking and scratching a little a the sensitive skin there, and he felt himself beginning to stir. He dragged his hands up over the tops of his thighs, trailing his thumbs through the creases at his hips, then slid his hands back to cover his hipbones, fingertips stroking over the top of his ass.

It occurred to him that Jens wouldn't be able to see that, so Geralt turned to face the window, the faint spill of moonlight cool on the other side of his eyelids compared to the brightness of the fire. He stroked over his hips again, the top of his ass, then brought his right hand, the one Jens could see, to his chest.

He didn't go straight for his nipple, remembering that he was going slow, teasing himself and Jens a little. He dawdled, running his hand over his chest, until he was sure that he was feeling that tingling in his skin that meant he was turned on enough for it to feel good. Then he brushed his thumb over the little nub, and let himself make a little sound when the dart of pleasure shot through him.

Jens's breathing didn't change, but Geralt heard him moving a little, clothing rustling. _Good._ They were getting there, both of them.

Geralt repeated the same motion, this time using his thumbnail just enough to make his hips twitch involuntarily, a shiver running down his spine. He pinched a little, tugging, and it felt good, but not better, so it was time to stop that. He moved his hand up to his throat, stroking his thumb lightly up the vein, running his knuckles almost as lightly down his jaw.

He pressed two fingers very lightly to his lower lip, and let himself think, _Kissing, I mean I like to be kissed, haven't you ever--_

He stopped thinking. He wasn't here to ask questions or wonder or fret. He was here to do what Jens wanted, for both their pleasures. He traced his lips with his fingertips, flicking his tongue out to meet them, then opened his mouth and pressed his fingers inside, sucking hard enough to hollow his cheeks. He worked them in and out just enough to make little wet noises, and he heard some little noises from Jens's direction too, maybe a sigh, maybe the movement of skin on skin.

Geralt drew his fingers from his mouth but let them rest against his lips, wet with spit that would shine in the firelight, while he caught his breath. He was intensely aware that he was somewhat more than half-hard now, his skin buzzing with eagerness, awaiting permission to go further. He tipped his head back, squeezing his eyes shut tighter, so he would remember not to look, not to beg, even with his whole body tensing with the need.

"All right, young wolf. Turn to face me, feet on the floor, knees apart, and then you can do what you like."

Geralt let out a gust of breath and moved where Jens wanted him, sitting on the edge of the bed and positioned so Jens could see, and then he wrapped his right hand around his cock. He tried to keep going slow, but he'd never been much good at that; if he and Eskel took their time it just meant they each came two or three times, and they slowed down after they took the edge off. Otherwise, going slow meant the man who was with him setting the pace, forcing Geralt to wait for what he wanted.

Without that, Geralt was stroking himself fast and tight, and just managed to ask through gritted teeth, "Is this--do you want--"

"Stop," Jens said, and Geralt froze, turning his head aside even though he hadn't opened his eyes. "You're all right, young wolf, I'm just a few steps behind you. Need to slow you down somehow, huh?"

Geralt swallowed and nodded, letting go of his cock to press his hand flat on his thigh. "What... what do you want me to...?"

"Mm," Jens said, and then Geralt's breath caught at the sound of Jens stroking himself, once, twice, that particular damp friction-sound that couldn't be anything else, not combined with his carefully-steadied breath and--now that Geralt listened for it--his speeding heartbeat. 

"I want," Jens said. "For you to use--this."

Something small landed on the bed beside Geralt, heavy for its size. Geralt knew what it was before he touched it: a little pot of some slippery paste, thick and soft and scented with whatever the witcher who'd mixed it up cared to use. Every witcher Geralt had gone to bed with had made his slick to a slightly different formula, bearing a different scent. 

Geralt didn't have time to wonder or guess what Jens would have chosen, but it wasn't a surprise when he opened the pot and inhaled no particular smell at all. Something clean, like soap but less so, and the metal of the container, but there were no herbs mixed in, no trace of potion or perfume. It would do the job efficiently, and nothing more was necessary.

Geralt let the pot fall to the bed beside him and dipped his fingers in, squirming to get into a position where he could use it--and where Jens could see him using it. He got one foot propped on the edge of the bed, the other splayed out and not quite touching the floor. He was lying on his back, because sitting up seemed like an unnecessary complication--Jens wasn't watching his face, and this way Geralt couldn't see Jens even if he opened his eyes.

It was only when Geralt had his hand between his spread thighs, probing behind his balls to find the spot, that it occurred to him that he couldn't remember the last time he'd done this, opened himself up instead of it being done by whoever was about to fuck him. He didn't know if he'd ever done this _like this_, without anyone touching him, egging him on, _daring_ him like he and Eskel had when they were younger. This was a having-sex thing; when he jerked off alone in his little room with its stone walls and heavy door, he didn't bother with anything this involved.

Well, he still knew how, and he still knew how it worked. He took a breath, making himself relax just the right way, and pressed two slick fingers inside. 

The feeling was enough to make his breath catch, his thoughts going mercifully blank. He focused on the feeling, and on making himself feel as much as possible, since he wasn't getting ready for anything else. There was just this, for its own sake. Geralt went slow, dragging his fingers around his rim, fingertips just barely inside, until he was squirming with the pleasure of it. He was making a little noise on every breath, and even though he had his left hand curled around his cock, unmoving, he couldn't resist giving himself a few squeezes. 

And even more importantly, he could hear little sounds from the other side of the room: more skin-on-skin friction, more little hitched breaths echoing his own. Jens liked him liking this.

It was enough like sex, then, to take on its own momentum, and Geralt could let himself sink into the pleasure and think of nothing else at all. Two fingers turned to three, and teasing turned to fucking himself with his fingers, thrusting faster and faster into himself until Jens told him to slow down, then speeding up again. His left-handed grip on his cock became slow stroking and then uncoordinated rubbing as he lost all track of what he was doing, and his wrist ached and his fingers were spasming and he felt like he'd been right on the edge of coming forever and like nothing had actually gotten started yet.

He felt himself getting closer than close, and this time Jens didn't tell him to slow down--this time he could hear Jens's rough breathing, as fast as his own, and the quickness of his hand moving on his cock. "Go on," Jens gasped. "Go--"

Geralt went off with a gasp, ass clenching around his fingers as he came all over himself, spattering all over his chest and belly and fingers as he jerked himself through it. He heard Jens groan, the sound fading into a sigh, and then quiet and stillness.

Geralt let his legs drop down to the floor, and slipped his fingers free of his ass to let his overused hand rest on his belly. He drifted, waiting for the next thing, for...

He opened his eyes when he felt someone leaning over him, slamming them shut even before he'd registered that the someone was Jens. 

"You can look now, if you want," Jens said, sounding warm and amused and calm again. "Nothing special to see, though. Turn over for me, young wolf, we're almost done."

Geralt turned, his mind still fuzzy and drifting. This was right, turning over for the next part, now that he was open and relaxed and--

The sting of a cut on the back of his shoulder brought him back to full awareness, and the itchy burn of Seal closing the cut made him catch his breath, struggling to keep still. He was aware now that he was facedown on Jens's bed, getting come and slick all over the linens, and Jens still wasn't touching him anywhere at all--only the point of the blade, and that smear of salve. He shivered a little, a chill running down his spine, raising the hair on the nape of his neck.

"Almost done," Jens murmured again. "You did well, Geralt. You earned this." And then, for just an instant, there was a touch, a hand brushing lightly over the top of his head, maybe smoothing down his hair. "There, it's closed. Go on, now, go find a warmer bed than mine to spend the night in."

Geralt nodded, face still pressed into the sheets. He straightened up just enough to find his clothes and boots, and gathered them all to his chest. He didn't look back as he walked out of the room, but at least he didn't run.

He stopped in the empty corridor and yanked his clothes on, but his hands shook when he tried to pull his boots on and his balance wobbled ridiculously--he wasn't that drunk, he couldn't be. He didn't need boots, anyway; there wouldn't be snow knee deep on the battlements tonight, and that was the quickest way back to his own room. 

It wasn't his own room that he ran to, though, across the battlements and up the curving stairs, shivering more than the spring night justified, hugging his boots against his belly. He ran to Eskel's.

He didn't stop to knock on the door; he knew it wouldn't be locked against him, and it wasn't. Eskel never shut him out, never told him no.

But Eskel wasn't there.

Geralt stood beside the neatly-made bed and stared, unable to think at all for a long breathless moment.

Eskel wasn't there. Geralt was shivering, could hardly breathe, desperate for more than he could put into words, but Eskel wasn't there.

Why should he be? Geralt had disappeared after supper and made no secret of intending to be gone all night; he'd thought--he'd expected--

So why shouldn't Eskel have found somewhere else to spend his night? One of the others in their cohort, or maybe one of the younger boys; anyone would be lucky to have Eskel in his bed, and Eskel shouldn't sleep alone just because--

Geralt's shivering got worse, and he folded down to his knees and pressed his face to the blanket on Eskel's bed, breathing in the scent of Eskel's body, and what Eskel did here--what they'd both done here, not nearly often enough. He drew a few harsh, unsteady breaths that weren't sobs. He had no right to feel on the edge of something like that; he'd gotten what he wanted from Jens. He'd come, and he made Jens come, and Jens had said he did well, and now--now--

He couldn't stop shivering, even when he forced his breathing to steady. He thought of getting up off the cold floor and crawling into Eskel's bed, of sleeping surrounded by Eskel's scent, if he couldn't have Eskel himself.

He remembered what Jens had said: _Yeah, pup. It's lonely. That's life._

That would be his life, out on the Path. After the Trial of the Mountains, he and Eskel wouldn't see each other for months, maybe years at a time, and when they did... they wouldn't be boys who could share blankets anymore. They'd be men, witchers, and they'd be too old for clinging to each other like they had since they were kids. They'd find people to fuck out there in the world--whores, strangers, probably no one who'd want to sleep warm beside them--and sometimes they'd come back to Kaer Morhen for the winter and have their separate beds warmed by the boys training here. But it would be years and years before they did, and even that was only if they both survived so long. Plenty of young witchers didn't.

If he was going to sleep alone, he ought to get used to doing it properly, in his own bed, without any pretending. He would have to soon enough; it would be good to practice. That was something else he could learn from Jens tonight.

Geralt forced himself to get up, remembered to pick up his boots, and slipped out of Eskel's room. His own was just next door; it shouldn't have felt like an entire night's hike to get there, but he was tired, and cold, and--

He froze just inside the door, only registering that something wasn't right, and then Eskel sat bolt upright in his bed and said, "Geralt? What's wrong? What--"

He started to get up, reaching for Geralt, and Geralt flung his boots--sort of _at_ Eskel, because he was flinging himself at Eskel at the same time. Eskel made it to his feet in time to catch Geralt beside the bed. Geralt was trying to cling to him and trying to get his own clothes off at the same time, all while pressing his face against Eskel's throat, breathing in his warm, living scent to replace that cold trace he'd gotten from Eskel's sheets. 

Eskel helped him get his clothes off, and got his own off at the same time, and then he got his arms around Geralt and held him immobilized. Geralt stopped struggling and pressed into him, trying to get his breathing under control now that the shivers were finally easing. He'd nearly managed it when Eskel said, low and very controlled, "What did he do to you, Geralt."

Geralt shook his head without lifting it from Eskel's shoulder. "No, nothing, I just--I need--" and it hit him, exactly what he really needed, as the words formed. "I need you to fuck me, please, now, I'm ready, I just--"

He shoved, determined to get Eskel back into his bed--_Eskel had been asleep in his bed_\--and Eskel let him, only grabbing for Geralt's wrists when they were down. Geralt tried to get them positioned properly, but Eskel wasn't quite cooperating, and it turned into a purposeless tussle on the sheets until Geralt was pinned facedown under Eskel's weight.

Geralt went limp, then, the breath going out of him as he found himself exactly where he wanted to be. The shivery feeling came back, but he didn't actually shiver, only his breath shook and his eyes prickled. 

"I will," Eskel said, grinding his hips against Geralt's ass, his hardening cock pressing pointedly against him, "but first you have to tell me what he did to you."

Geralt shook his head, and Eskel's grip on his wrists tightened.

It struck Geralt that Eskel was thinking something like Jens had thought, and for the same reason--it had been Eskel who got him out of Karsten's room. Eskel probably knew better than he did just how badly Karsten had hurt him; Eskel had been the one to clean him up that night, and Geralt himself hadn't been in any state to take stock until he was already well on the way to healing.

"Not like that," Geralt managed, just above a whisper. "He didn't--he wouldn't touch me. He doesn't like touching. But I said, he could watch me, and he agreed. That's all, he just watched, I don't know why I--"

Eskel's face pressed against the back of Geralt's neck, and for a dizzy second Geralt thought that he would feel a kiss against his throat, and he wanted it and was terrified of it all at once. 

He got the pinch of Eskel's teeth, instead, and that was familiar and normal enough to make him relax again. He pushed his ass up against Eskel's cock. "I'm fine, I just--come on, fuck me."

Eskel sighed in his ear, long-suffering, but he said, "Like this? Or--"

They'd tried a lot of different positions, especially now that they had rooms they could be properly alone in. Geralt pictured doing it another way--any of the other ways that would let him see Eskel's face--but all of those would mean Eskel seeing _his_ face, and-- 

Geralt thought of every time he'd ever been kissed, during or after a fuck, and shuddered. He spread his legs and said, "Yeah, like this. Come on."

Eskel sighed again and gave him a little matching bite on the other side of his throat before he lifted up enough to grab Geralt's hips, tilting him to a better angle than perfectly flat on the bed. "Slick?"

"I'm already--"

"_Slick._"

Geralt huffed but reached over to the edge of the bed, where he kept his own little tin tucked between the mattress and the wall, and passed it back to Eskel. 

"Don't need fingers, though," Geralt insisted, spreading his legs wider, and Eskel snorted but didn't argue as he slicked himself. Geralt could smell the faint sharp myrtle scent of the salve cutting through the familiar scents of them and sweat and sex. 

"Fine," Eskel muttered, settling himself into position. "No fingers." 

Geralt let out a breath as he felt Eskel's cock press against him, and felt something in him unwinding, his whole body loosening up to let Eskel in. It wasn't effortless--he'd obviously tensed back up since he got done fingering himself for Jens--but it worked, and Geralt welcomed the little burn of it. It felt real, felt like actually doing this instead of yet more teasing.

It felt like Eskel inside him and Eskel over him, Eskel's nose brushing the back of his head and taking in the same smells that Geralt was drowning in, the familiar mingling of the two of them in Geralt's bed. It felt like getting exactly what he wanted, what he needed, and Geralt didn't want to feel anything else right now, just Eskel's cock opening him and filling him. It was so familiar and still so good every time.

He felt warm all over in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room or Eskel's shared body heat. He'd never been further from shivering. He was right where he belonged, and so was Eskel, sunk balls-deep inside him. Geralt gave the twitch of hips and the soft grunt that meant _Go on, I'm ready,_, and Eskel scraped his teeth over the nape of Geralt's neck like he had so many times before, and then started to fuck him.

He was slow about it at first, just a little bit careful the way they were with each other sometimes. Geralt didn't need it, but he didn't have the energy to fight it, either, so he just let himself go pliant under Eskel, melting into the sheets a little. Eskel let himself settle lower, so he was mostly laying over Geralt's back, holding himself up just enough so he could still fuck as hard as he wanted to. Not very hard, tonight, but the carefulness faded away into just taking it easy, unhurried. No one would interrupt them, and they had all night here together.

Geralt felt sweat drip onto the back of his neck, heard that little grunt that meant Eskel was really getting into it, not about to come yet but heading there. Geralt tilted his hips up a little higher, making space under him, and Eskel huffed a laugh but reached down to get his hand on Geralt's cock. 

It was faster after that, like running the last lap around the battlements, knowing they were almost done, and the pleasure of what they were doing was nothing to the pleasure of finishing. Geralt rocked up into Eskel's thrusts, laughing a little, and they both knew they were racing now, even though they could never agree whether the winner was the one who came first or the one who made the other come first. 

It was more or less a tie, as it mostly was with them. Geralt was teetering on the edge, balls tight and that lightning gathering down his spine, and then he heard Eskel give that quiet groan, and the thrust of Eskel's hips was that little bit harder. He knew Eskel was coming, then, and that was all it took to set him off too--and somehow it was better knowing that Eskel would be waiting for the catch of Geralt's breath, the way his muscles tightened and his ass clenched, knowing exactly what it all meant.

Eskel collapsed flat on top of him after, and Geralt turned his head to the side so he could more or less breathe while being gently crushed into the mattress, enough to start feeling the ropes under the padding. 

He found himself trying to memorize that feeling: the way Eskel's limp weight on him made him feel the ropes under him. The way the sticky warmth of their bodies pressed together made the air taste so cool and sweet when he breathed. The way it felt to have Eskel still inside him as he softened, the wetness of slick and come sliding down over his balls. The way every breath Eskel took pressed against Geralt's lungs and every exhale was a breeze against his cheek, and--

He had to remember this, he thought, drifting toward sleep. He had to remember.

He didn't think about why he would need to remember this. He didn't want to remember thinking about why; he had a whole night to share his bed with Eskel and that was all that mattered.


	6. Chapter 6

Geralt returned to Kaer Morhen for the first time in several years, on a Wednesday afternoon when the promise of snow was heavy in the air. He'd spent the winters since he'd left as a newly-minted witcher working all over the North; he'd rung in his new years in Cintra and Skellige and Kovir and on nameless roads.

But now the second cohort after his and Eskel's was out on the Path. Around midsummer, Geralt had run into little Erik, who he remembered as barely recovered from the Trial of the Grasses, out there taking contracts with two swords on his back and his first set of clawed scars on his left arm. 

That meant it was only fair to leave the winter work to the younger witchers who needed the experience and the coin, and take himself off to Kaer Morhen for a season's rest. The fact that he had run into Eskel at a tavern in the foothills of the Kestrel Mountains a month after he saw Erik, and they'd talked about how it might be time to go back for a winter, had hardly anything to do with it. That was merely confirmation that his sense that it was about time was correct.

If Eskel's was the first face he looked for, riding into the courtyard, it was only because he wanted to be sure his old friend had made it safely to the keep ahead of the snow. And if he immediately spotted Eskel leaning against the courtyard wall in a sheltered corner, alone, clearly doing nothing but watching the gate... well, Eskel had had reason to worry about him more than once. There was nothing strange about that, or about the warm gladness that rushed through Geralt just as it had every time he came across Eskel out on the Path somewhere in the years since they embarked upon it.

He'd scarcely reached Eskel--they were still laughing and backslapping, teasing about who was running late and who'd been lazy enough to start his winter vacation early--when more men poured out the doors from the great hall. They were quickly surrounded by other witchers. For a second Geralt was very conscious of being back in Kaer Morhen, with Eskel at his side, surrounded by grown witchers, and then the reality of it slotted into place.

These were _fellow_ witchers, now. He wasn't the kid they took to bed anymore; he was an equal among his brothers. He'd met most of them on those terms over the years since he'd left Kaer Morhen, in taverns and bogs and on the road and once, for reasons he doubted either he or Afon ever wanted to remember, let alone speak of, at the top of a tree in a rainstorm.

But it made it easy now, to laugh with them, to slap Afon's shoulder, to give Slava a quick hug, to nod to Jens, lingering in the doorway with a crooked little smile on his face. Geralt let himself be ushered in on the tide of them, to be part of the crowd. He was assigned a room, and no sooner had he set his pack down than Olli was sticking his head in the door to say, "You'd better have kept a tally if you didn't save all your contracts, you're contributing to the chronicle books now."

"I saved them!" Geralt insisted, grabbing the satchel full of grubby, tattered paper. "I mean, all of them since the batch I sent home with you two years ago. It's still an entire damn saddlebag."

Olli grinned, nodding. "Good man. Come on, everybody wants to see how many pins you stick in the map, there's drinks riding on it."

Geralt was familiar enough with the endless complicated barter system of drinks owed to know that this didn't mean anyone would ever actually end up putting down coins in exchange for alcohol in an establishment that charged for it. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. You better have bet on a high number."

Olli just laughed, and Geralt let himself be led back into the crowd.

* * *

He didn't have another moment where there were fewer than two men between him and Eskel until he managed to claim the seat beside him at dinner, knocking shoulders and knees together as he settled in. Eskel smiled sideways at him and said lightly, "Miss me?"

"You'd know if I'd hit you," Geralt replied, the only safe answer. "My room's next to yours, though, isn't it?"

Eskel raised his eyebrows slightly, as if that _didn't_ mean it would be easy for them to slip into each other's rooms to drink by the fire together tonight and catch up properly, but he said only, "Yeah, it is." 

Then the food arrived at their table, delivered by the crowd of Bastion boys. Geralt looked away from them instinctively, the way almost everyone did with Bastion boys almost all the time. That turned his gaze to the tables occupied by the boys who'd already passed the Trial of the Grasses, many of whom were looking back.

"Oh," Geralt said, abruptly realizing what Eskel's eyebrows had meant. He hadn't forgotten--how could he?--but he hadn't quite realized that this part of being a grown witcher spending the winter at Kaer Morhen would arrive so soon. "Wednesday night."

Eskel snorted beside him, and muttered, "You're not obligated to fuck your way through all of _them_, you know."

Geralt huffed--it hadn't been _obligation_ that earned him his collection of tally marks, and Eskel knew that as well as anyone--but he eased back in his seat a little, too. Eskel had a point. "I did climb the Killer today. And rode twenty miles before that."

Eskel's shoulder knocked against his, and he could hear clear as a bell the sound of Eskel trying not to seem pleased when he said, "That's true. Could want a quiet night." 

Geralt rubbed his shoulder more firmly into Eskel's, knowing he didn't have to say that he'd like it to be a quiet night but not a night spent alone, or at least not until it was time to sleep. He wondered whether he could get around even that--he might manage to fall asleep before he remembered to go back to his own room, after all. Even if he was just stretched out by the hearth, maybe he could still spend the night not being alone even while he slept.

And even if not that, at least he'd be able to sit quietly and talk with Eskel, like they might at a campfire or in the darkest corner of a tavern, maybe not even talking but just sitting there quietly together, knowing they were in the same place and safe. 

It struck him then that the winter would be a whole season of nights like that--even if he spent all the nights he was allowed giving boys their trials, there were still five nights of every week when he _wasn't_ allowed to touch them. Five nights of every week for months, until the snow melted and the passes cleared, with Eskel right next door.

Geralt settled back to eating then, feeling comfortably decided on his plan for the night. He still watched the currents around him, the looks exchanged, nods and nudges here and there, just to see how it worked from this side. 

He'd had no idea how _obvious_ the boys were, looking up at the witchers, waiting and hoping to be chosen. He'd also had no idea how young they were--surely the boys at the farthest table ought to have been eating down in the kitchen with the rest of the Bastion boys, or possibly with the littles under Master Herrick's eye? And yet they'd all quite obviously been through the Trial of the Grasses, peering up at the witchers' table with slit-pupiled amber eyes. Their faces had the sharp edges of growing boys who could never eat enough to keep up with their bodies--they were just all so sleekly smooth, so untouched. _Children_.

After a little time watching, it became obvious that the youngest cohort had been through the Trial of the Grasses but hadn't really arrived at the age, or size, of eligibility. Their curious and fascinated looks up at the witchers didn't carry that particular edge of tension and expectation that the older boys' did. Those ranged from the carefully-not-looking to the ones looking hopeful, anxious to be chosen, to the ones looking nervous about being chosen, to...

Well, there was only one boy who was shoveling his food down with his face twisted into a furious scowl aimed straight at the witchers' table. It was a face that said, _Try me, I dare you._

It wasn't at all the same look Geralt had employed, but it reminded him uncomfortably of the way he'd pulled Karsten's attention to himself, all those years ago. Being bold enough to draw danger toward himself. In this one's case, Geralt thought it was more a matter of facing down what he thought was inevitable.

Geralt looked up and down the table, searching for any sign that one of the men there might have singled that boy out, or might be someone who incited particular dislike. There was no one at the table whose bed Geralt hadn't been in sometime between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, so he had firsthand experience of every one of them. None of them were even the sort to be careless of a boy's pleasure or to tease in a way that slid into mocking. Certainly none of them cast so much as a speculative glance toward the furious dark-haired boy; their eyes seemed to pass over him as if he wasn't there.

Because he wasn't, for their purposes, Geralt realized. He remembered what Jens had told him about his own trial, and how no other ever followed it--_it was obvious I wouldn't be any fun._ That was what every man here wanted, after all; a boy who would enjoy himself, a boy who would share a pleasant evening. Not a boy who looked like he'd bite if you put a hand on him. 

Geralt looked back to the angry boy and saw, too, that _he_ had no idea that he was in no danger of being chosen. How many suppers had the boy already spent defensively glaring a hole in every man at the witchers' table, braced for an attack that didn't come and didn't come?

Geralt glanced over at the instructors' table, and met Vesemir's eyes. He knew at once, by the faintly questioning look, that Vesemir had been watching Geralt watching that boy, and was waiting to see what would happen. As he'd waited to see what would happen with Karsten? Was he going to wait until Geralt had gotten his eyes scratched out or his dick bitten off before he did something to assure the boy that there was no need for such violence?

Well, if Geralt put himself in a position to suffer those injuries, the boy would be justified in inflicting them, so he supposed that added up. And no matter what Vesemir told the boys, it was obvious that he couldn't, or wouldn't, convince this one that he need not be braced to fight off every man in the keep to avoid being dragged to someone's bed by his hair.

He wore his hair quite short, actually--too short for anyone to get a grip on. Geralt hoped it was only because he liked it that way, and not because he thought he couldn't afford to give anyone a handle. 

Geralt had his assignment, then. It didn't take long for him to catch the kid's gaze; he kept his own expression as neutral as possible, and nodded toward the far end of the dining hall, the end away from the staircase to the witchers' rooms. The defensive fury got a little mixed up with bewilderment, and then the kid nodded grimly and looked down at his food. Geralt watched him while he finished his own meal. The boy didn't look up again, and the wound-tight line of his shoulders didn't ease.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Eskel murmured, low enough to be for Geralt's ears alone, under the general noise of talking and eating and dishes clattering. 

"I can't _leave_ him like that," Geralt replied. He glanced over at Eskel, and saw Eskel get it, which meant that he _hadn't_, before. "Fuck, you think I would--"

Eskel shook his head quickly, putting up a hand to stop further words. "I know, I know. But you did choose him."

"Not for _that_," Geralt grumbled, and then brushed his shoulder against Eskel's again. "Quiet night, remember?"

"Sure," Eskel said, sounding only mildly skeptical.

Just like the angry kid, there was nothing to do for Eskel but prove it. Geralt finished as much more of his food as he could stomach while watching the angry kid all but vibrating with tension, like a bowstring held at full draw for too long. When Geralt gave it up and stood it was a relief to realize that others were getting up too, and it wouldn't be hugely obvious that he was rushing off to get the boy alone.

It was still pretty obvious that they were heading in the opposite direction from the rest of the men and boys leaving the dining hall. They were all alone when the boy caught up with him at the archway that led into the great hall. 

"You didn't check," the boy snapped.

Geralt turned to look at him. "Sorry. What's your name?"

The boy scowled harder. "Lambert. You didn't check how tall I am."

"I'm Geralt," he said, and reached out with his hand flat, careful not to actually touch Lambert's head as he brought his level hand over to clear his shoulder by a good inch or so. "And you're tall enough. Not that it matters."

Lambert made a noise that was almost as shocked as it was furious--so he'd believed Vesemir at least about the fact that the rules were meant to be respected--and pivoted on his heel, ready to bolt.

Geralt gave up on his resolve not to touch the kid and grabbed both his shoulders, digging his fingers in hard, and hissed in his ear, "It doesn't matter because _I'm not going to fuck you._ I just want to tell you some things."

Lambert stopped trying to get away and twisted to look over his shoulder and up at Geralt, scowling all over again as he said, "Why?"

Geralt groaned, feeling obscurely that this moment was his punishment for every way in which he'd been maddening to the adults around him when he was younger. 

He propelled Lambert into the great hall and over to the big fireplace. The fire wasn't yet banked for the night but had burned down to more embers than flames, and most of the torches were out. It gave a feeling of privacy to the circle of dim light near the fireplace even in the enormous room--without Geralt actually having to get Lambert alone somewhere really private, which would probably entail both of them shedding some blood along the way.

When he let go of Lambert, the boy just whirled around to face him at arm's length, arms folded across his chest and chin tilted up. 

"Why what," Geralt demanded flatly. "Why am I not going to fuck you? Because I don't fuck people who don't want me to fuck them. Why do I want to tell you how this works? Because I don't like watching people be scared when I could help them."

The kid straightened up taller, tipping his head back to snarl, "I'm not _scared_, I just _hate all of this_."

Geralt nodded slowly. "And hating all of it would be fine if you were sure that that meant you could say no to it, but you don't know."

Lambert's posture loosened by the tiniest increment--still strung tight, but no longer in quite so much danger of snapping. "That isn't how it works."

Geralt waggled his hand. "No one tells you that's how it works, because no one really tells anyone how it works. But most boys don't hate it so much they look like they're about to master no-hands Igni, either."

Lambert bared his teeth in an almost-smile. "Not like I haven't tried."

Geralt tried not to wince visibly. "Look, the point is--you don't have to, all right? No one's going to force you. We can tell a boy who's nervous or shy from one who _really doesn't want to_. That doesn't exactly take a witcher's senses."

Lambert looked away for the first time and said, in a decent attempt at an even, offhand tone, "Some people don't care about that. Or that's what they want. No one cared that I didn't want to come here and didn't want to be a witcher."

Ah. One of those. "How old were you when you came here?"

"Almost ten," Lambert said. "Just in time to turn ten at the solstice."

Which would mean he'd come in late spring, and gone straight out to the Bastion to be trained by some of the harshest masters in all of Kaer Morhen. He hadn't had a spell under Master Herrick's care as a little, or even the comparative ease of a winter in the keep, to learn to feel at home here.

"And your Trial of the Grasses was..." 

"The next summer," Lambert said, still not looking. "I don't know why I made it, when the ones who were so excited to be witchers didn't. One of them was..." Lambert swallowed hard and shook his head.

"There's no knowing," Geralt said with a sigh. "Some people say things like that are destiny, but it's something in your body, your cells. Just isn't obvious from the outside, so the only way to know is to try. And we're needed, so we have to try."

Lambert made a quiet little snarling sound and looked up at Geralt again. "Just like we're _needed_ for witchers to fuck?"

"You're not," Geralt repeated, mostly patiently, "If you really don't want to. Any more than we're needed to teach you how to fuck, if we don't want to. Some witchers don't."

Lambert's face went blank, like it had never occurred to him that the adult witchers were individual men with preferences and not just faceless enemies who were going to drag him off and fuck him whether he liked it or not. 

"Ask Vesemir," Geralt went on. "Ask him what happened when a witcher hurt me like that, the first winter I was old enough for the Trial of the Linens."

Lambert's eyes went wide, and he looked Geralt up and down, like it was an even greater surprise that he'd once been where Lambert was. 

"If anyone tells you he wants you, you can tell him it won't be any fun for either of you, or tell him you have to ask Vesemir first, or just turn and run," Geralt said. "I don't think you'll meet anyone who pushes past that, but if they do--Vesemir will deal with it, and you can tell me you told me so. But they shouldn't, and you shouldn't have to worry that they will. That's not what this is about, you against us. It's not that kind of trial. It's meant to be good, or more good than bad at the very least."

Lambert stared at him for another moment, then ventured cautiously, "The one who did it to you..."

"You'll never meet him," Geralt said firmly. The thought of Karsten getting his hands on Lambert made his hand itch for his steel sword. The fact that Geralt had been only Lambert's size, and just as pink-cheeked and unmarred, when it happened to him was... nothing he wanted to think about. It had been a long time ago, and the man was dead.

Lambert bit his lip. "You're not fucking with me? I can really just..."

Geralt shrugged and nodded. "I think... it mostly doesn't occur to anybody, because it's how it is. Almost everyone just does it, even if not everybody likes it all that much. But if you've made up your mind, no one's going to force you. You can say no. You don't have to hate us about that, at least."

Lambert gave him a sideways look. "Just everything else."

Geralt snorted, and took a step back, shaking his head. "Sure. Hate us about everything else." He'd done what he could for the kid; he wasn't going to try to make friends, and he had better fires to sit by with better company. He turned away, heading back toward the dining hall.

"Geralt?"

He stopped and looked back, and Lambert closed the distance between them with halting steps, with a look on his face Geralt couldn't quite read. 

"Did you like it? Other than that one who... did you like it with witchers who weren't like that about it?"

Geralt nodded. "Yeah, I did. But you--"

Lambert shook his head sharply. "Not me. But if--if you weren't really choosing me to take upstairs with you, are you going to go choose someone else?"

Geralt raised his eyebrows, not about to cut the kid off before he found out what this was about.

"You could choose Micha," Lambert blurted. "If--I mean, you can choose whoever you want but you seem like--you wouldn't be bad about it, and _he_ wants to, but he's shy and he thinks no one will choose him. No one has so far. He has a fire mark," Lambert added in explanation, and brushed his hand over his right cheek and jaw. 

Geralt had a dim memory of a little boy with a mark like that, bright red and covering a fair portion of his face. Abandoned, or at least orphaned and not taken in, because superstitious villagers called the mark a sign of hellfire, the stamp of a demon or a witch. He'd come to Kaer Morhen when he was five or six, like Eskel had. Geralt didn't remember when that was--he had already been out of Master Herrick's care and into training, hardly paying any attention to the littles on the rare occasion he ran across one of them. Adding up the years, it wasn't impossible that he'd be about Lambert's age, and old enough for his trial, if anyone would give it to him.

And young enough to feel it keenly, if he wasn't chosen. If even among his own kind here at Kaer Morhen, he was already being made to feel like a freak and an outcast. The last several years had given Geralt all too much experience of that feeling; no boy still safely in training ought to be suffering it.

Geralt had done what he could to make Lambert feel like he was safe at home here. Shouldn't he do the same for Micha?

"I... could," Geralt said, and Lambert's expression lightened to the nearest thing to happiness Geralt had seen on him yet. Without another word he darted past Geralt, back toward the dining hall. Geralt followed, not quite running but stretching every stride. If he let Lambert out of his sight, there was no knowing what the kid would tell his friend. 

Still, the first person Geralt looked for in the half-emptied dining hall was Eskel. Their eyes met instantly; Eskel had obviously been watching for him to return. They shared an instant of wordless connection and then Eskel glanced away, and Geralt followed his gaze to Lambert, who'd run up to a brown-haired boy, just the same height he was, who could only be Micha. 

The fire mark on his cheek only became visible when Micha looked in Geralt's direction, in obvious reaction to whatever Lambert was whispering to him. He kept his expression as neutral as a fourteen-year-old could in the circumstances, which meant that he was blushing a pink that made the red of the mark look even more garish, and his eyes were wide with hope even as he pressed his lips into a wary line. 

Geralt couldn't hold that gaze for more than a second, and when he looked away he met Eskel's eyes again. Eskel's eyebrow twitched up, the corner of his mouth tightening in a not-quite-smile. Geralt knew that he knew exactly what had just happened--what Lambert had said and what Geralt had tacitly agreed to. 

Which meant they wouldn't be having that quiet night together after all, not tonight. But Eskel had sounded skeptical about that from the start, and he only looked amused now, not annoyed, so that was all right. They could have a quiet night tomorrow, and the next night and the next. 

If it made something ache at the center of Geralt's chest, a weariness still unrelieved that had nothing to do with how far he'd ridden today and over what trails, well. He was a witcher. A little pain wouldn't trouble him.

Geralt gave a minute tilt of his head, a flick of fingers; he and Eskel didn't need more than that to make a plan between them. 

Eskel gave a sharp little exhale, a barely visible shake of his head: _You don't need me for this._

Geralt cut a quick glance toward Micha and Lambert; Lambert was frowning at Geralt, edging toward a scowl, but Micha was looking toward Eskel. 

Geralt opened his hand emphatically wide, and Eskel straightened up from the table he'd been leaning against, squaring his shoulders and stepping into the plan. Geralt instantly firmed his own stance to match, and headed toward the boys in stiff strides that Eskel mirrored.

Eskel was leaning into it a little harder by the time they met, so Geralt let him make the first move, slapping a hand against the center of Geralt's chest and saying, "Hey, back off."

"You back off," Geralt responded, shoving Eskel back and not thinking too hard about how wonderfully familiar it was to bicker and tussle with Eskel over something neither of them really cared that much about. "I'm taking him upstairs, go find your own."

"Didn't hear you say a word to claim him," Eskel replied, shoving back harder. "You went off with the other one. I haven't even had my first for the night yet, you don't get a second."

"I didn't _fuck_ Lambert," Geralt snapped, getting into it, shouldering into Eskel while Eskel planted his feet and pushed back. "I'd've taken longer than that if I did. He mentioned Micha to me, said he was game, and _he_ told Micha I wanted him. You didn't even know his _name_."

"Don't need to know his name to know what I want with him," Eskel growled. "Don't need to convince you, either." He went for an arm lock, then, twisting Geralt around in a sparring move as familiar as breathing. 

The countermove was as automatic as exhaling, too, and for a moment Geralt lost himself in the familiar motions of scuffling with Eskel, rough but not too serious. Then he felt Eskel give way, letting Geralt make the head lock when he could have dodged it, and he remembered what they were doing. 

Geralt was behind Eskel by then, the whole front of his body pressed against Eskel's back. He shot a quick glance at the boys to see how this little play was going over--Lambert looked suspicious, which he probably would no matter what he was thinking, but Micha was wide-eyed with something like delight. 

Just to finish it off, Geralt tightened his arm around Eskel's throat another fraction and tilted his head to hiss, "_Mine_," in Eskel's ear, just loudly enough to be overheard.

Eskel shuddered a little in his grip, and Geralt let up on his throat to make sure it wasn't because he needed to breathe. In the next second he wondered if he'd imagined it; Eskel just said, "Fine, fine, _yours_," in an annoyed tone that shouldn't have made Geralt's belly feel warm like it did. 

Geralt released his grip, shaking his arms out as though he'd really been trying. 

Eskel stabbed a finger toward Micha and said, "Sunday, you're with me."

Micha nodded, still wide-eyed and blushing even brighter, and then refocused on Geralt. 

"C'mon, then," Geralt said, jerking his chin toward the stairs. He caught just a glimpse of Eskel turning to look at the other youngsters who'd lingered, still hoping to be chosen, while Lambert made a beeline for the dormitory, and then he made himself focus entirely on Micha.

Geralt slung his arm around Micha's shoulders, drawing him close as they climbed the stairs, and felt very slightly as if he'd spent several leisurely minutes dispatching some scrawny drowners only to turn around and realize a kayran had risen from the water behind him. Agreeing to do this for Micha, and making a good show of wanting him, was one thing. Actually giving the first Trial of the Linens to a blushing bright-eyed kid who cleared his shoulder by an inch at most was... something else again.

At least he was sure he had a pot of Seal in his pack for after; that wasn't something you could wait to mix up until you needed it. 

And, now that he thought of it, he had a lot of opinions he'd formed in his years in training about how a Trial of the Linens, especially a first one, ought to go. He'd certainly experienced the widest possible variety of approaches to it, and he'd had enough sex in the last several years with humans--and assorted other non-witchers--to be well in practice at not breaking a bed partner through carelessness.

He hadn't been able to be careless since--well, since before he'd left Kaer Morhen. Since Eskel. But they'd been boys then, and boys were allowed to be careless; witchers out on the Path weren't. On another night, maybe he'd be able to be less careful. He could choose one of the older boys, nearing their last trials and almost ready to be out on the Path. Maybe on Sunday night, when Eskel was busy with Micha.

But for now, there was Micha, and he would need to be careful. 

As Geralt ushered Micha into his room, it occurred to him for the first time that maybe it wasn't only the boys who were meant to learn something from these trials. Spending the winter going to bed with boys who would soon be their brothers in arms--who had Vesemir standing guard to ensure they weren't mistreated--was good practice for being considerate of even more breakable partners, out in the world for the rest of the year. This way they would remember, when they went back down the mountain in the spring.

It made him feel a little better, to think of this as something that he was meant to be learning, as well as teaching. He smiled down at Micha, and gestured toward the bed. "Have a seat for a minute, take your boots off."

Geralt sat down beside him, close but not crowding him, and took off his own boots; Micha followed a beat behind. It obviously wasn't the first instruction he'd been expecting, and Geralt smiled at his feet, recalling all the different ways his nights with witchers had started. In his peripheral vision, he saw Micha smiling too, anticipatory.

Off to a good start, then, if he was still more excited than nervous now that they were alone.

"So before we get going," Geralt said, looking over at Micha to meet his eyes. "Have you tried any of this before? With other boys, or..." As he said it Geralt considered that Micha's likeliest candidate for friendly experimentation was _Lambert_, so...

Micha shook his head, looking down. "I've, I mean. I know how it works and all, I just..."

"That's all right," Geralt said gently. "That's what tonight is for, to give you a chance to try things and learn."

That got Micha to look up, his shy look transforming into a bit of a smirk. "I thought tonight was for..." 

Geralt laughed. "That too. But if we do this right we'll both have a good time and learn some things." 

He set his boots aside and peeled his socks off while he was at it, tossing them away from the bed as he got a proper whiff of them. He considered that he'd been wearing these pants and drawers just as long and decided that he wasn't enough of a bastard to teach Micha to suck cock under those circumstances. Eskel would teach him whatever Geralt missed, anyway, so he could be sure Micha would have a good teacher next time, as well as one who'd bathed sometime in recent memory.

Geralt tugged his shirt off next, tossing it after his socks, not looking directly at Micha while he followed suit. "The other thing..."

Geralt had spent a fair amount of time, in his younger years, trying to think of the right way to say this. He still wasn't sure he had it, or that hearing it said, in even the most perfect words, actually would have helped so much. He just knew that he didn't want another kid to get the lesson Afon had given him at the end--not the same way he'd gotten it.

"By the end of the night," Geralt said slowly, "we're going to know each other pretty well, and probably like each other pretty well. That's natural, when you're close to someone like this and you get off together. Especially the first person you do this with. You like the feeling so you like the person. It's not that it's not real--I still like the witchers I liked after spending a night with them. But you're going to like Eskel, and whoever takes you upstairs next week, too, and I'll be getting to know the other boys in your group and above. We can't play favorites, either of us. Understand?"

Micha's shoulders had curled down a little, his chin dipping low, but he nodded.

"Hey," Geralt said softly, reaching over to run his thumb down the line of Micha's jaw, over fire-marked and fair skin just the same. "That's to worry about later, though. Tonight it's just you and me and figuring out what we want to do together."

Micha bit his lip, shivering a little at the touch, but some fraction of that smirk was back as he said, "Just figuring it out?"

Geralt snorted, running his knuckles down the side of Micha's throat to watch his eyelashes flutter, then curling his hand around the nape of the boy's neck. "Well, I like to learn by doing. You'll find you do a lot of that, here and on the Path as well."

He could feel Micha's body temperature rising, saw the speeding pulse fluttering in his throat even before he brushed his thumb over the vessel there. Micha swallowed and then looked over at him, and the narrow pupils of his eyes had already turned to wide pools of black. 

No need to give this one a shot of anything for courage.

"What, um," Micha was clearly struggling to string two words together, and Geralt smiled, feeling fond as well as amused; he couldn't resist giving him a little squeeze on the nape just when he opened his mouth, distracting him all over again. 

Micha licked his lips, and Geralt had to bite his own, reminding himself firmly that he'd decided long ago never to kiss a boy in his first winter of eligibility, especially not in his very first trial. It would only confuse what he'd just told Micha about not getting attached.

Geralt's own moment of distraction gave Micha the chance he needed to pull himself together, and he twisted toward Geralt, setting a hand with obvious boldness on Geralt's bare arm as he said, "What am I learning first?"

Geralt grinned and gave the boy's nape another squeeze in lieu of kissing that brave face. Maybe next winter, or the winter after, but right now he had to be careful--more than one kind of careful.

"I think..." Geralt gave the boy a look up and down. The fact that Micha still had his trousers on did almost nothing to hide how excited he was, and the pink flush of arousal had run down his throat and was spreading to his chest as Geralt watched. 

"The first thing you learn had probably better be... the importance of taking the edge off," Geralt said, and he let go of Micha to slide off the bed, dropping to his knees at the boy's feet before Micha could try to follow.

Micha's eyes went wide, and the bulge of his erection under his thin trousers jerked. Geralt reached for the fastenings to put the boy out of his misery before he came in his pants, and Micha made a strangled noise and clutched at the sheets. 

It was still a near thing; Geralt got his hand on Micha's cock, watching his face as he ran his thumb lightly over the wet head of it. Micha cried out without restraint at that and hooked one leg around Geralt as if to keep him from escaping. 

Geralt hummed a reassuring noise and started jerking him off, going slowly and watching his face as Micha discovered the shocking difference it made to be touched by someone else. Geralt found himself wanting to make it last--not to tease Micha or draw out his pleasure, but to keep feeling the way it felt to be doing this. Seeing the shocked pleasure on the boy's face was almost irresistibly hot, in a way that seemed to settle more in his chest than his balls--though it got there, too.

Slow as Geralt went, Micha only lasted a couple of minutes before he tensed, curling forward as his cock jerked in Geralt's grip. Geralt stroked him through it, murmuring words of encouragement and still watching the boy's face as best he could, drinking every last drop of that feeling.

Micha clutched blindly at Geralt's shoulders as he panted in the aftermath, and Geralt reached around with his clean hand to rub the boy's heaving back, turning his head to let Micha's forehead rest against it. He finally closed his own eyes, and found he was breathing hard himself.

A little shudder ran through him as his focus rebounded from Micha's reactions to his own body; he was nearly as hard as Micha had been, just from watching and smelling and feeling Micha's pleasure. He'd always liked that, being the one to make someone else feel good, even the very first time.

Eskel's face flashed through his mind, and Geralt pushed the half-formed thought away, drawing back far enough to look at Micha as the boy pulled himself together. His eyes were turned down, toward Geralt's crotch, and he licked his lips with an unpracticed attempt at coyness as he said, "So what's second?"

Geralt laughed and said, "Yeah, I could stand to take the edge off too. Let me just--"

He stood, wiping his hand absently on his trousers as he took a few steps away before he dropped them by the rest of his clothes; he smelled more of arousal now than days of unwashed travel and hard riding, but his clothes weren't getting any more fragrant. While he was up, he rummaged in his pack, pulling out the two lidded pots they'd be needing sooner or later.

He returned to the bed and sprawled out at the head end, dropping both pots beside him. He rested his shoulder against the wall and let his legs splay out wide while Micha watched, riveted to the sight of Geralt's cock, standing up stiff against his belly. Geralt gave it a couple of slow strokes, watching the boy watching, and then took his hand off himself to beckon Micha closer. 

Micha, who'd gotten rid of the rest of his clothes when Geralt did, scooted toward him across the bed, looking uncertain again. Geralt said, "Just your hand's good for now. My hand worked all right for you, didn't it?"

Micha nodded hard at that and reached for him, slinging one leg over Geralt's as he settled in close. Geralt curled an arm around Micha's narrow shoulders, keeping things friendly and easy before the boy could start thinking too much. And then he had his hand on Geralt's cock, and Geralt didn't know whether to watch his tentative grip or the intent expression on his face, but it all felt better than it had any right to.

It had been years, Geralt suddenly realized, since he'd been in bed with anyone who understood him as well as even a half-trained Kaer Morhen boy. Years since he could be so at ease, or since anyone leaned so easily against him, naked skin to skin. He groaned a little at the thought as much as the feeling, and Micha gripped him tighter, stroking him slowly at first and then with increasing confidence.

"Am I doing it right?" Micha asked, teasing but also a little breathless, and Geralt huffed and swatted at the boy's head without really making contact.

"You're doing fine," he said, a few beats late, and Micha looked up and met his eyes. Geralt got stuck there, staring, seeing eyes like his own, and someone looking back at him without shock or disgust or strangeness. He bit down hard on his lip, and pressed his shoulder hard into the wall to keep from curling forward. Geralt closed his eyes and brought his hand to cover Micha's, guiding him to just the right grip and tempo to finish this quickly, before he did anything stupid and careless.

Geralt didn't, quite, manage to do it before he felt Micha's cheek press against his shoulder, but he came before that went on too long. Micha picked up his head at that and Geralt opened his eyes to watch the slightly awed look on Micha's face, as if he'd just done something he hadn't known he could do, as if getting a witcher to come was as impressive and exciting as casting a perfectly formed sign.

Geralt untangled his wet, sticky fingers from Micha's and immediately swiped them over the boy's nose. Micha reared back, startled and laughing, and shoved his own hand at Geralt's face. Geralt laughed too, before Micha could remember that Geralt was a proper grownup witcher and not another boy he could play around with so freely; there was a flicker of something in Micha's eyes that said he'd remembered anyway, but he didn't flinch or freeze. Not before Geralt ran a wet hand through Micha's hair, anyway, and then the boy howled in playful outrage. 

Geralt tumbled him over onto his back, getting a feel for how much force he could exert--and how much he had to, because a fourteen-year-old witcher in training was a hell of a lot stronger than any ordinary human of his size. Micha pushed back without hesitation--probably not a day had gone by since he'd come to Kaer Morhen that he hadn't tussled with boys his own size and larger. He was still laughing, fearless, even when Geralt finally pinned him.

"Yield?" Geralt demanded, struggling not to laugh himself.

"What do I get if I do?" Micha wriggled experimentally, as much as he could in Geralt's hold. "Another lesson?"

"Mm-hm," Geralt agreed. "Same as if you don't, it'll just take longer."

Micha beamed up at him, and there was a laugh in his voice as he went limp and said, "I yield, then."

"Well, then." Geralt moved his hands, letting them slide slowly down over Micha's body, an exploration and a caress combined. He planted them on Micha's hips and tugged the boy around to the position he wanted, right way up on the bed where he could brace his hands and Geralt could lie between his legs. He could have knelt again, but he meant to take his time with this part, and he didn't need anything spurring him to rush it.

He looked up and met Micha's eyes; the boy was biting his lip again, and his hands opened and closed restlessly, uncertain. 

"Give me the green pot," Geralt said, nodding toward it, and Micha half twisted to find it, and set the red one aside with care. "Hands above your head, little wolf. Remember you gave in already, so I'm in charge now."

Micha nodded, and without Geralt having to say it, he raised his hands high enough to find the end of the bed and press them against it. 

Geralt smiled approvingly, and then let go of Micha's hip to curl a hand around his cock--already hard again, no surprise there. Micha made a startled little noise and said, "I thought you--"

"No need for you to do any thinking right now," Geralt murmured, and brushed his lips over the head of Micha's cock. 

The sound that Micha made was a pretty good sign that he wasn't going to be doing any thinking, or speaking, for a little while. 

Geralt grinned and repeated the light touch, and added a swipe of his tongue on the next pass, finally getting a taste of the boy. It was years by now since he'd done this, since he'd had anyone's cock in his mouth, but the taste was familiar, and the heat and weight of it were so satisfying, pressing on his tongue. He let himself have a moment or two of just getting a feel for it, sucking and licking and humming while Micha trembled under his hands with the effort of keeping still.

He didn't let it go on too long--he didn't want to make Micha really desperate. This was supposed to be good for him; it didn't need to be more of a challenge than this the first time. When he judged he'd dawdled for as long as he dared, Geralt loosened his restraining grip on Micha's hip and slid that hand down his thigh and inward.

Micha whined and struggled to spread his legs wider, and Geralt picked his head up.

"It's not that, it's the angle," Geralt said, grinning, and wrapped both hands around the backs of Micha's thighs, tugging him up to demonstrate the way his hips needed to tilt to give Geralt access.

Micha planted one foot and braced the other lightly against Geralt's shoulder, and Geralt grinned. "There you go."

His hands moved down again, one to curl lightly around Micha's cock, and the other going lower. First he cupped Micha's balls--already starting to tense and rise again, eager--and stroked his fingertips over the spot behind them, watching for Micha's reaction. There wasn't much of one yet, so Geralt tried a firmer touch, and--there. Micha's eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. 

"Good," Geralt murmured, smiling with his teeth, "that means you're going to enjoy this, little wolf."

Micha nodded, breathing roughly, mouth still hanging open. He was pretty clearly in no shape to form words. Geralt felt his own smile soften a little, and he found the tin of slippery stuff and got his first two fingers coated in it. He ducked his head a little to lick a line up Micha's cock as he pressed a single fingertip to his hole, but he kept his eyes on Micha's face. He didn't want to miss a second of Micha's reactions, pleased or otherwise.

So far, so good. Micha's eyelashes fluttered and he wriggled a little, trying to get more than just that touch. Geralt teased him for another moment, dropping kisses against his cock and circling lightly with his fingertip, but when Micha made a frustrated noise Geralt said, "All right, all right," and pressed in with a firm, steady pressure--no sudden jab, but also no uncertain hesitation.

Geralt made a little choked-off noise of his own as his finger slid inside; Micha was hotter and tighter inside than anyone he'd done this for in a very long time. Micha's face was tense, his gaze gone distant, his teeth pinching his lower lip again. Geralt hummed a reassuring sound and got his mouth on Micha's cock again. It _was_ a pretty weird sensation at first, but given a minute to get used to it the pleasure would overcome the strangeness. Geralt moved his finger in slow, smooth waves, setting up a rhythm like a sleeper's breathing, light and even and calm. 

He felt Micha relax into it--saw it in his face, felt it around his finger--and took that as his cue to start sucking Micha's cock again while he got on with opening him up. Geralt rocked his own hips against the mattress as he worked, giving himself a little friction; it would be no good to get Micha ready and find himself a crucial step behind. He'd always felt that as a failure on his part, when he was in Micha's place. There shouldn't be any of that tonight, not his first time. He should go away feeling good about this, not fearing to get it wrong.

Geralt did tease now, keeping Micha on the edge of coming as he stroked into him, getting him slick and soft and ready. It would feel better if he got to come while getting fucked, and being in the dizzy spiral of arousal would keep him distracted from the odd new sensations and the little bit of pain he might get stuck on otherwise. Geralt went slow, counting off seconds and minutes in his head to make sure he didn't rush. 

He entertained himself a little--and kept his dick interested--by seeing how many different sweet little noises he could wring out of Micha. He thought he'd gotten all of them by the time he'd been twisting two fingers into him for several minutes, but there were still more new ones when he went to three. 

That was also when Micha started talking again, panting, "Please, please--Geralt--"

He didn't manage to complete a question, but it was clear enough what he wanted from the way his hips jerked up toward Geralt's hand, trying to get his fingers deeper. Micha was writhing almost continuously now, close to being really overstimulated; a little burn would be welcome now, to contrast with the all-out pleasure assault.

"All right, little wolf," Geralt said, and wiped his mouth on his own shoulder. "Think you can get up on your knees?"

Micha flailed a little, and Geralt caught a knee before it hit him in the head. He eased his fingers out, making a sympathetic face at the sound Micha made, and sat up himself, moving around to put his back to the wall. By the time he'd done that Micha had sorted out his own limbs and climbed up to straddle Geralt's lap without hesitation. 

"That's it, you've got it," Geralt murmured, resting one hand on Micha's hip and getting his cock properly slicked up with the other, then holding it steady. "Hands on my shoulders, now. Come down when you're ready." 

Geralt barely had the words out before Micha's hands tightened on his shoulders and Micha started lowering himself toward Geralt's cock. Geralt guided him, lining them up, and said, "Ah," just barely more than a breath, when they made contact, the head of his cock just kissing Micha's hole.

He met Micha's eyes--pupils still wide, face still flushed, every sign of eager excitement and nothing else. No use in reminding him that this might hurt; if he could keep from anticipating pain there would be less of it. Geralt gave him a little squeeze on the hip, a fraction of a nod, and Micha closed his eyes and took a careful, even breath, tilting his head back and closing his eyes in concentration. 

Geralt watched, fascinated and a little nostalgic, as the boy mastered himself, his body, with an effort Geralt remembered having to painstakingly learn. Then he began to sink down onto Geralt's cock, and Geralt was abruptly struggling to keep his own control. "_Fuck_, little wolf--"

Micha smiled without opening his eyes, and Geralt laughed a little and then cut off as Micha sank lower, taking more of his cock into that slick tight heat. "Like--that?"

Geralt laughed again, breathlessly. "Yeah, just like that."

It wasn't long before Micha took him in all the way, sitting fully down on Geralt's lap. He gave Geralt a beaming look, proud of himself as if he'd just completed a run of the gauntlet. 

Geralt put a hand to the back of his neck, shaking him gently by the scruff and grinning. "Keep going, now."

Micha huffed and nodded, his eyes closing again as he gathered himself to push up. Geralt let his own eyes close, let himself sink back against the wall behind him. He wasn't failing Micha by letting him control this part himself, and Geralt wouldn't mess up and hurt him this way. He could stop thinking for a few moments, just let himself feel the movements, tentative and then surer, always a sweet gliding friction that tugged at the core of him. 

It took some time, this round--long enough for Micha to settle into a rhythm, long enough for Geralt to guide him to try varying his angle. That won some hot little gasps and the feeling of the boy clenching up tight around him at a jolt of pleasure. Geralt's hips jerked up reflexively in response, and Micha rocked his hips and clenched up tight around him. Geralt watched through his eyelashes, still keeping his head tilted back, still not letting himself be tempted by the pink wetness of Micha's parted lips.

They both sped up, Micha gaining the confidence to push and Geralt losing the will to resist pushing back. He got a little careless, maybe, right at the end, but Micha's gasps never sounded more like pain than pleasure, and Geralt barely had to touch his dick to get him to come. Geralt got there himself before the boy had stopped twitching with the aftershocks, spending inside him with a heartfelt groan.

All he could think, letting himself slump against the wall while Micha lay limply against his chest, was, _Contract fulfilled and we both survived_. He laughed a little at himself, running a hand up and down Micha's back, and then opened his eyes to look down at Micha's unmarked shoulder, the scarless skin still smooth as a child's. 

He hadn't given the boy _quite_ everything he'd come here for, just yet, but that part could wait until morning. Right now Geralt didn't want to do anything but sleep, and he didn't think Micha would disagree. 

Geralt still had to be the responsible one, though. After another moment he got on with it, gently disengaging and laying the boy down before he went to find a cloth and water to clean them both up, not forgetting Micha's hair and the tip of his nose. Micha was almost asleep by the time Geralt finished, and Geralt felt the exhaustion dragging at him and wondered if the witchers who'd fucked him had ever felt like this. He wondered if he owed any of them an apology.

When he finally lay down, Micha curled into his side without really waking, slinging an arm over his chest. He was warm and unwary and it made Geralt ache, to remember how not-alone he'd always been when he was a boy at Kaer Morhen. 

He closed his eyes and breathed through it, reminding himself that he had a whole winter to enjoy this--and tomorrow night there wouldn't be a boy in his bed, but Eskel's room was right next door, and they would surely think of something. Eskel would be getting the same reminder tonight, of how nice it was to share blankets. To touch skin to skin with someone trusted and trusting.

So maybe there was no apology owed after all; maybe that euphemism about _warming a witcher's bed_ had never been as much of a euphemism as he thought it was. Maybe he'd given those men something he couldn't have imagined them needing, all unaware. 

He turned his head to press his face against Micha's brown hair, pressed a secret kiss there, and slept deep and dreamlessly, knowing he was home.

* * *

In the morning they both woke up hard, so Geralt gave Micha a lesson in ways to get off together without having to figure out where the slick landed last night. After that they were both a mess and had to get up anyway, but they both had smiles on their faces as they did.

It was Micha who found the little red pot of Seal; he held it out to Geralt with a cautious, hopeful look.

Geralt grinned. "Yeah, you've earned your tally fair and square. Sit, I'll get a blade."

Micha perched on the edge of the bed while Geralt found a good sharp dagger; he put his other hand on Micha's opposite shoulder at the same time he made the cut, giving him no time to anticipate the sting. "Salve, now," Geralt said, watching the blood well and discovering the very strange sensation of knowing that the mark he left would stay on Micha for the rest of his life. He smeared the Seal on and steadied Micha when he hissed at the sting of it, watching the little wound close to a red line before he wiped away the blood. 

"There you go. Off to breakfast, now, you don't want to be late when you've worked up an appetite."

Micha grinned over his freshly-scarred shoulder and nodded, hurrying into his clothes and not bothering with his shoes before he darted out into the corridor, following another set of footsteps Geralt could hear disappearing down the stairs.

Geralt let himself look over once Micha was out of sight, and of course Eskel was leaning in the open door of his room, having just turned his own bedmate loose. They always did find themselves falling into sync easily.

"Did you ever think about it?" Geralt blurted. "What it's like to be on this side?"

Eskel kept his composed mask for a second, then scrubbed a hand over his face, shaking his head and laughing a little. "Was it this fucking weird for them, you mean? Were you ever anybody's first time back? I don't think I was."

Geralt thought of Slava and made a non-committal noise. He wasn't going to ask, he didn't think. Not just yet. "Well, one thing's certain as the sunrise, anyway."

"Kaer Morhen porridge," Eskel agreed, sounding about like Geralt felt: knowing it wasn't anything like a treat and feeling silly festival-day anticipation for it anyway. 

But maybe that was more to do with the company than what was going to be put in front of them.

"Better get dressed, then," Geralt said, letting his eyes rake up and down Eskel's body, clad only in unfastened trousers.

Geralt had only gotten as far as a clean pair of drawers, so Eskel's return look up and down was no more than he deserved. Then Eskel ducked back into his room, calling out, "Race you!" as the door closed behind him. 

Geralt laughed and lunged for his own clothes, already wondering what the winner might be able to demand from the loser. They had a whole winter at home to try to even the score, whatever it was. Geralt hurried, and relished the certainty that it was only for fun; here and now, at Kaer Morhen with Eskel, he had plenty of time.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [Tumblr](http://dsudis.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/dsudis) if this gives you feelings and/or you want to discuss my thoughts on Kaer Morhen logistics and child-rearing practices, _I have so many thoughts_.


End file.
